If the white-hot rumors are to be believed, on Tuesday, iPhone fanatics (such as myself 😀 ) will have another network option in the USA. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Verizon has scheduled a big shin-dig in New York on Tuesday, January 12th, to announce that it will introduce the Apple iPhone to its network. This is a pretty big deal. The conventional wisdom is that Verizon has a much more robust network than AT&T, and that current captives will flock to Verizon the second they offer an iPhone. No doubt many current AT&T customers will make the switch, but I’m not convinced it will be a flood.
I’ll wait and see what happens on Tuesday, but if the Verizon iPhone is not dual-band and will only work on the Verizon CDMA network, I for one, will not be switching. As entertaining as the thought of having full data access on my iPhone during my morning and evening DC Metro commutes is, that doesn’t make up for having a phone that will not work outside the country. Most of the world is on the GSM cellular standard, like AT&T. Ever tried to use your Verizon cell phone in Europe? Unless you were prescient enough to buy a dual-band phone, you were out of luck. Frankly, I like the fact that I can walk off a plane in London, turn on my iPhone, and watch it work just like home. I’ll be watching with interest to see what Verizon announces on Tuesday. I hope it’s a dual-band phone. If it is, they might just nab me.
I agree with you, I’m waiting to see what this big announcement is because my 2 yr contract is up this month with AT&T and I’m tired of my old 3G iphone. If it isn’t dual band then it’s not something I’m going to consider. If they added LTE to it then it’d be really cool but I doubt that.