We weren’t sure whether to report this or not, because we don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up—including our own. BusinessWeek reported that Verizon Wireless’ chief technology officer, Anthony Melone, says the company is “prepared” to support the iPhone if Apple decides to end its exclusivity with AT&T. Verizon, the largest wireless provider in the U.S., is reportedly investing in its network to make it capable of handling extra traffic from Apple’s iPhone.
“We have put things in place already,” Melone says. “We are prepared to support that traffic.” Melone did not make any comment directly admitting that the iPhone would become available on Verizon in 2010, but several reports of Apple’s recent behavior have some analyst this new communion may be the case for the coming year. There have been a couple reports that Apple is working with chip-maker Qualcomm for a CDMA-capable iPhone that could run on the Verizon network.
Is this really all so far-fetched? Apple did allow Microsoft to put its Bing application on the iPhone, so maybe because it’s the holidays Steve Jobs is feeling chipper and cheery and willing to share the mobile wealth. We’ve all seen A Christmas Carol, we know change can happen. Actually, some analyst believe that Verizon launching the iPhone could be a very likely situation, especially since AT&T has taken so many hits this past year—none of which Luke Wilson could fix—for poor service coverage.
