AT&T Has Five Year iPhone Monopoly
05.23.07 - 12:53pm
Word of Apple’s contract with AT&T is beginning to come to light and it would appear to show that AT&T will be the sole distributor of the iPhone in the U.S. for the next five years.
Under the contract Apple is not allowed to release a version of the iPhone that can work on CDMA for five years. Verizona and Sprint both use CDMA wireless networks while AT&T uses GSM wireless technology, which is incompatible with CDMA. Basically for five years even future versions of the iPhone will only be AT&T compatible.
This gives Apple a huge advantage in the already maximized cell phone market. According to Forrester Research approximately 78 percent of U.S household have a cell phone. Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester says that the 22 percent without cell phones are, “are the very young, the very old and the economically challenged”. What this means in the cutthroat world of wireless phones, is that is has become not about aquiring new customers but about taking the customers from the competition.
In this cutthroat world, AT&T currently holds the keys to the hottest cell phone ever to come on the market. If you want the iPhone you move to AT&T, an option Verizon turned down and an option AT&T is capitalizing on. With a five year iPhone monoploy AT&T is hoping to “steal” a lot of customers.”I’m glad we have (the iPhone) in our bag,” says Stan Sigman, CEO of wireless at AT&T. “Others will try to match it, but for a period of time, they’re going to be playing catch-up.”
Speak Your Peace