The iPhone is soon leaving the exclusive realm in the UK, but here in America the device is still tied to the AT&T network. Many users feel the AT&T network with its hoards of dropped calls and other issues is the weak link for the device.
According to some analysts, the way for Apple to increase sales is to drop the exclusive deals it has in place. Some analysts have said that iPhone sales could double is the exclusive deals were ended.
For instance if Verizon sold the iPhone analysts say that its market share would grow from 4.9% to 12.2%. More than 10% of AT&T’s postpaid users already have an iPhone making its market well served. I am sure AT&T will fight with all they have to keep the device exclusive as many existing customers are there solely for the iPhone and might leave for other providers if they could.
If AT&T loses its exclusive iPhone deal, then I’ll stay with AT&T.
Because 75% of current subscribers will move, and AT&T’s network will be wonderful! :-)
And Verizon’s network will creak along until they deal with the increased load.
I will leave AT&T in a heart beat.
Iphone might soon have free reign in Europe because every carrier uses GSM. Don’t see that happening in the US unless everyone hops on the GSM bandwagon. I just don’t see that happening and I don’t see Apple building a CDMA version just for Verizon–even if they have the most cellphone users in the US. Besides, not everyone (currently on Verizon) is going to go out and buy an iphone–I’m sure Verizon would see it as an opportunity to raise it prices and impose its weak application selections. Either way–it doesn’t matter to me because my wife and daughter use Verizon and I use ATT. Believe it or not–Verizon SMS doesn’t communicate with many European carriers–like ATT–something I needed and Verizon couldn’t provide. To each his own.