So today is supposed to be the day that VZ announces that they’re going to carry the iPhone. But if the announcement was about something entirely different, there’s a few reasons why I wouldn’t be totally surprised.
The biggest reason would be voice & data. Verizon’s network uses a technology called CDMA to carry your voice and data traffic. The problem is that CDMA can’t handle voice and data at the same time (so you can’t access the web while on a call). There is an alternative called Voice over Rev A (VoRA) that allows simultaneous voice & data. However, as of October of 2010, I had yet to see anything about it being deployed en masse. Is it possible that Verizon rolled it out and tested their entire network in 3 months? Have them had it all along? Possibly.
The other reason is the speed of Verizon’s network. Their “theoretical” data rates are approximately half of what you can get through AT&T. Of course, that’s not real world usage, but even if it’s “half-true”, you’ll still have people on Verizon getting slower throughput on their device that an AT&T user standing next to them. Would Apple release the same product that performs different depending on carrier?
Third is the iPhone 5. Assuming the iPhone 5 comes out in June, why release hardware that will be obsolete in 5 months? What happens to those people who bought iPhone 4’s on Verizon? Is the Verizon iPhone 4 going to be the only VZ phone until iPhone 6 in 2012? Again, not very “Apple-like”.
However it pans out, the tech world will be buzzing for quite some time.
