Verizon, 4G and iPhones

cgriffin21 writes "Verizon plans to launch its 4G LTE network in 38 major U.S. metropolitan areas by year's end, in an ambitious rollout that will also drape high-speed mobile broadband coverage over 60 airports." Not coincidentally, everyone and their brother is talking about iPhone on Verizon in 2011, and what that means to Android.

Comments

The missing piece

[Midnight Thunder]

In many way this is what will allow Verizon to get the iPhone. When the iPhone 5 comes out it is bound to support 4G, so even if Verizon is not an official partner, people will be able to use the phone there.

I have never been convinced that Apple would want to add CDMA capability, just for Verizon, because of the extra licensing costs and the fact Verizon had already announced that it was putting in place a 4G GSM network. I may still be wrong about Qualcomm-CDMA support being added (CDMA is part of GSM in the form of wave encoding, not protocol), though we will see.

Re:The missing piece

[Altus]

Is it really worth it to buy an unlocked phone though? As it is you get a big discount on a new phone in exchange for your contract. I am not aware of any provider that gives you a monthly discount in exchange for not taking advantage of that discount. If you know of one I would be very interested.

I think that is what would have to change because as it is, having no contract isn't that much of an advantage, assuming you know you will want to have a phone for the next 2 years and getting a deep discount on a new phone is very attractive.

too little too late

[SoupGuru]

Tons of people got tired of waiting for the iPhone on Verizon and had to settle for an Android phone only figure out, "Hey, this Android stuff is actually pretty cool!" and now have no desire for an iPhone. So Apple might get more of the currently-smartphoneless-on-Verizon demographic when their contracts allow them to upgrade, but I think they've lost every single one that's bought into Android up to this point.

Nothing?

[geoffrobinson]

"If I wanted an iPhone, I would have gotten one."

I, I, I.

How something impacts Android is completely dependent on how it would affect you? There may be a few people out there who decided to go with Android because they didn't want to switch to AT&T.

Re:Nothing?

[0100010001010011]

Not too long ago Apple didn't have one of the most popular phones on the market. Instead, they were the underdog. The ROKR was an epic failure and no one really knew if Apple could pull off a phone.

But they went shopping around anyway, more or less 'begging' to let someone take their yet un announced product. Not only that, they were asking the network to NOT have total control of the device. (These were the days when Verizon would cripple a phone to turn a quick $.50 making you send a photo on their network). In addition to that they were asking them to upgrade their servers, spend money, so that it could do this fancy thing called 'Visual Voicemail.' In return for all of this, Apple would sign a exclusivity contract with said network.

Sprint* said thank you and respectfully declined. AT&T also declined. Verizon's CEO went above declining and more or less gave Jobs the finger. Cingular said 'what the heck' and let Apple in.

AT&T bought Cingular, honored the contract and here we are today.

It was a HUGE gamble. It paid off, but Apple had never made a phone before. There was no "AppStore". The iPod Touch didn't exist. iTunes Music store existed, but wasn't a dominant force in the marketplace and still DRM protected.

But Apple didn't "blow" anything. No one predicted the iPhone's success, not even Apple. AT&T is clinging to that contract like a liferaft, because they know the second it is up Verizon is going to bend over backwards to accomodate the iPhone.
* All gathered from internet hearsay over the years.

Re:Nothing?

[yabos]

Apple approached Verizon for the first iPhone but Verizon wanted too much control. Only AT&T would allow Apple the control that they have, but it came at the cost of an exclusive deal.

Not going to happen. Here's why.

[aristotle-dude]

Ever notice that beyond the bold carrier emblems on the phones themselves that virtually all smartphones sold on Verizon are advertised by Verizon instead of the handset makers themselves? Contrast that with the iPhone which might be sold exclusively in the US on AT&T but it is marketed by Apple directly and there are no AT&T (or other carriers for that matter) logos anywhere to be found on the phone or in the manuals.

Those other handset makers have allowed themselves to be relegated OEMs for the carriers while Apple markets directly to the consumer and only used the carriers as subsidized sales channels. This means that Apple manufactures one model (save for the Chinese no-Wifi model) for use worldwide and only enters IMEIs into their database to as sim LOCKED for any carrier that requests it. Except for different manuals and charger models, the iPhone you buy in the US/Canada or the UK only differ in what is included in the box and the phone itself is the same production run.

Even assuming that Verizon agreed to no branding on the phone either physically or in software/logo form, Apple would have to either create a special run for Verizon (CDMA) or raise the costs for every iPhone manufactured by switching to a CDMA/GSM model for no added benefit for people living outside of the US.

Re:Question

[Captain Spam]

That being said, I don't know why Verizon pushes their V-Cast services so hard...out of all the people I know that use Verizon, I don't know anyone that actually uses anything V-Cast has to offer.

Our logic states that because nobody uses V-Cast and hasn't used it in the X years it's been around, perhaps they should realize their failure, stop pushing it, and try something else, as it's clear nobody wants it.

Their logic states that because nobody uses V-Cast and hasn't used it in the X years it's been around, it obviously has not been pushed hard enough, as it's clear these customers are misbehaving by not throwing their money at it.

Re:It means nothing to Android.

[Andy Dodd]

While the CPU in the iPhone is an "Apple spec" CPU, most likely the radio chipset is from a third party.

Most such third parties offer roughly equivalent GSM and CDMA chipsets (In fact, probably 50%+ of the GSM/UMTS smartphone market is powered by Qualcomm chipsets, despite Qualcomm being the creator and backer of cdmaOne/CDMA2000), making it not too difficult to make a CDMA version of a phone and a GSM version.

Also, you show a fundamental lack of understanding of RF and communications engineering. New band = new antenna. Same bands but different protocol = no new antenna, just a different baseband processor. Therefore, adding T-Mobile's additional band is the least likely route for Apple to go.

Changing the iPhone from GSM/UMTS to CDMA2000 (note: UMTS uses a CDMA modulation scheme, one of the reasons Qualcomm is involved in that market despite them backing a competing protocol/air interface suite - they're good at making CDMA chipsets whether it is the UMTS protocol/air interface suite or CDMA2000) most likely entails:
1) Switch out the baseband processor chip. Note that as I said before, nearly all UMTS chipset providers also provide CDMA2000 chipsets that are very similar and require little engineering
2) Remove the now unneeded SIM slot (what was that about a packed device?)

That's about it

Note: Right now, Apple gets their radio chipsets from Infineon, but there is a lot of evidence pointing to them moving to Qualcomm for the 5th gen iPhone, with the ability to produce a CDMA version being one of a number of reasons, Infineon getting purchased by Intel being a bigger reason - see http://touchreviews.net/iphone-5-qualcomm-radio-chip/ - I don't know about Infineon chipsets, but it is VERY easy to make both a CDMA2000 and GSM/UMTS version of a phone if you use Qualcomm for your radio chipsets, which is why a large portion of HTC's GSM product line have near identical CDMA equivalents.