Qualcomm Looking to Supply Chips for iPhone?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/18/qualcomm-looking-to-supply-chips-for-iphone/)

Bloomberg reports (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ao2h6Bt0FN5o) that Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs has acknowledged that the company is in talks to bring its chips to the iPhone."We continue to discuss it, but haven't made it yet," Jacobs said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Hong Kong today. "Hopefully, in the future, we will have the opportunity."The vaguely worded statement makes it unclear whether Qualcomm is making a specific push for the iPhone or if Jacobs is simply acknowledging that the company is always looking for new opportunities for its products, wherever they may be.

Qualcomm is the company behind the CDMA2000 3G technology used by Verizon and Sprint for their wireless networks, lending hope to U.S. users hoping for an iPhone capable of being deployed on those companies' networks. It appears doubtful, however, that a CDMA2000-based iPhone would be able to make an appearance before the technology begins to be phased out (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/16/verizon-iphone-more-likely-when-4g-networks-arrive-in-2010/) in favor of the LTE 4G technology that vendors worldwide are coalescing around.

Article Link: Qualcomm Looking to Supply Chips for iPhone? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/18/qualcomm-looking-to-supply-chips-for-iphone/)

[SooneratND]

That would appear to end the speculation of a Verizon iPhone anytime in the next year or so. I don't see them prototyping and then ramping up to full production all in 2010 if they don't even have a single chip on hand yet.

[Eidorian]

It's nice to see Qualcomm alive and kicking.

[CFreymarc]

This should be no surprise to anyone here. It has been said that Qualcomm didn't give Apple the price break they wanted on the first generation iPhone.

At first, Qualcomm was in disbelief of their market projections on the volume of the first iPhone. Now years later with egg of their face, Qualcomm is seeing Apple as major player and "in the club" with the rest of the big boys.

[MarlboroLite]

It appears doubtful, however, that a CDMA2000-based iPhone would be able to make an appearance before the technology begins to be phased out in favor of the LTE 4G technology that vendors worldwide are coalescing around.

Why is this doubtful? The technology is indeed going to be phased out, but not for a very long time. Verizon starts slowly deploying LTE next year in select markets and even then not for their cell phones. By the time LTE can actually cover the entire country AND be available for cell phone use it will be years. And in any case where LTE is not available CDMA will be the fallback and so that technology is here to stay for a quite a long time.

Apple will not be making an LTE iPhone in 2010 in any case, maybe not even by 2011 since Verizon will be pretty much the only carrier even offering nascent LTE. AT&T and many world carriers are simply way behind the curve. So it is not doubtful that Apple would simply use a World Phone radio that can receive CDMA and GSM like so many other phones already do. 3G, whether GSM or CDMA is here to stay for still many years to come. LTE adoption will be very slow.

[elppa]

He would do well to stay quiet.

Apple no doubt likes MacRumors for all the free publicity and the buzz it generates, Partners with real information divulging information on Apple's future products and plans is a big no no. Especially if it ends up on the internet and the front page of MacRumors.

[jav6454]

Qualcomm is still running? Dam, they have 9 lives. In any case, *very* doubtful they will supply the iPhone in any way.

[NoExpectations]

Well, despite the rumors, I don't think we will see a CDMA iPhone....ever. They aren't even in any talks right now. After talks, thre is engineering, prototypes, testing, and then production. Might as well wait for 4G.

I do think that Verizon wants us all to believe that a Verizon iPhone is coming....it will delay the mass exodus to AT&T and whoever is next (T-Mobile?).

[tdar]

Why is this doubtful? The technology is indeed going to be phased out, but not for a very long time. Verizon starts slowly deploying LTE next year in select markets and even then not for their cell phones. By the time LTE can actually cover the entire country AND be available for cell phone use it will be years. And in any case where LTE is not available CDMA will be the fall back and so that technology is here to stay for a quite a long time.

Apple will not be making an LTE iPhone in 2010 in any case, maybe not even by 2011 since Verizon will be pretty much the only carrier even offering nascent LTE. AT&T and many world carriers are simply way behind the curve. So it is not doubtful that Apple would simply use a World Phone radio that can receive CDMA and GSM like so many other phones already do. 3G, whether GSM or CDMA is here to stay for still many years to come. LTE adoption will be very slow.


While Verizon will have LTE deployed for a large amount of the US population in 2010, the network will still retain it's CDMA abilities for a long period of time. The full LTE rollout is not projected to be complete until 2014. Until then Verizon phones, even ones that have LTE support, will still support CDMA as well. But having said that I am sure what Qualcomm and Apple are talking about is the new Qualcomm chipset that allows for CDMA\LTE GSM\UTMS phones all in a single design.

[mdriftmeyer]

Why is this doubtful? The technology is indeed going to be phased out, but not for a very long time. Verizon starts slowly deploying LTE next year in select markets and even then not for their cell phones. By the time LTE can actually cover the entire country AND be available for cell phone use it will be years. And in any case where LTE is not available CDMA will be the fallback and so that technology is here to stay for a quite a long time.

Apple will not be making an LTE iPhone in 2010 in any case, maybe not even by 2011 since Verizon will be pretty much the only carrier even offering nascent LTE. AT&T and many world carriers are simply way behind the curve. So it is not doubtful that Apple would simply use a World Phone radio that can receive CDMA and GSM like so many other phones already do. 3G, whether GSM or CDMA is here to stay for still many years to come. LTE adoption will be very slow.

Wrong on so many counts.

Apple doesn't design the phone for US Centric Carriers. They chose GSM because it's the global standard.


LTE Advanced is a mobile communication standard. It is currently being standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as a major enhancement of 3GPP Long Term Evolution. LTE (Long Term Evolution) standardization has come to a mature state by now where changes in the specification are limited to corrections and bug fixes. LTE mobile communication systems are expected to be deployed from 2010 onwards as a natural evolution of Global system for mobile communications (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS).

[bearbear]

Wrong on so many counts.

Apple doesn't design the phone for US Centric Carriers. They chose GSM because it's the global standard.

Makes sense except that they went to a CDMA carrier first with the iPhone. I think if Apple really wants to slow the adoption of Android, they're going to want to have an option on as many carriers as possible.

[aokiqiao]

I dont see this World iPhone coming out next year in the June/July refresh. But who knows whats going on behind Apples closed doors as I type this. If I had to guess I'd say 2012 is the magical year AT&T will lose exclusivity in the U.S. Thats when my contract ends with AT&T too lol so I may be just lieing to myself. :p

[Uabcar]

Wonder if that means that FLO TV could come to the iPhone - still nascent in terms of channel selection at this point- but a good start.

[dagamer34]

1) Unlikely to see a CDMA-only phone from Apple, ever.
2) More likely to have a "global phone" which has a hybrid CDMA/GSM chip in it which Qualcomm does make (Gobi chips). They'd probably need to be shrunk to fit in a phone.
3) No LTE until 2011, regardless of when Verizon has it's network up and running. An LTE iPhone however, would be a true world phone. It would probably still have a CDMA fallback for use on the Verizon network when necessary.

[aristotle]

Makes sense except that they went to a CDMA carrier first with the iPhone. I think if Apple really wants to slow the adoption of Android, they're going to want to have an option on as many carriers as possible.
They also launched the first gen iPhone initially in the US market only. The CDMA market is irrelevant now in the grand scheme of things. You speak as if the US market is the centre of the universe.

Other CDMA carriers are either quickly moving towards LTE directly or have switched to UTMS/HSPA (3G GSM) networks as a stepping stone towards LTE.

In Canada, the two major CDMA carriers partnered together and rolled out a 21Mbps HSPA+/HSDPA network compatible with the 3GS on November 5th. It took them less than two years to build out a network that is actually larger than Rogers Wireless.

Sprint and Verizon could have accomplished the same thing in even less time if they had decided to do it.

[dubnde]

Saw this article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/11/apple-worldwide-iphone-plan) in the guardian(UK) article.

[fscott]

The CDMA chip is for the tablet.

[Chupa Chupa]

Geez, did it never occur to anyone that Qualcomm is now showing LTE chips? Just Google if that's not to hard. If Apple plans on having an LTE compat. iPhone in 2012-2013 then now WOULD be the time to negotiate, so this article a) shouldn't be that huge of a shocker and b) shouldn't be read that Apple is planing a CDMA phone -- that is NOT going to happen. It's just common sense.

[Prom1]

I worry that Qualcomm's chipset featuring LTE will be ARM11 based. Even with the SnapDragon at 1Ghz I don't think we'll see a significant performance gain if any at all during high-end apps like gaming (in particular Eliminate really taxes the cpu; heat).

There are other company's in the game ....
Ericsson for one have been testing LTE a little longer than Qualcomm with great success and I'd rather see a chipset from them using ARM Cortex A9 with SMP for applications core.

Also Ericsson makes a LOT of celllular network components used by more telco's worldwide than Nokia-Siemens, Motorola, or Qualcomm.

The only advantage to using Qualcomm (currently) is the dual-mode CDMA/HSPA or CDMA/LTE.

[thetexan]

CDMA will be around for at least another 10 years before the towers start going "dark". If Apple signed the papers today they could have a CDMA capable iPhone on store shelves in 6 months or less. Every other cell phone maker is able to produce handsets that are both CDMA and GSM, why all of a sudden is it so hard for Apple? I'll answer my own question, it's not hard at all. It's just the excuse fanboys come up with for the reason why Apple is exclusive with AT&T in the US. The other GSM alternative is T-Mobile, perhaps the one company with a crapper network in the US than AT&T.

Fact of the matter is CDMA is the dominate, better network in the US and until Apple makes a phone that works on CDMA in the US we will be stuck using a great phone on a subpar network.

[neilah1]

Fact of the matter is CDMA is the dominate, better network in the US and until Apple makes a phone that works on CDMA in the US we will be stuck using a great phone on a subpar network.


Well said, Texan. It's just how it is.

Qualcomm's recent announcement of LTE+CDMA+GSM+HSDPA on a single chip, single radio solution could be a big deal.

I agree that Qualcomm absolutely missed the boat by not giving Apple the volume pricing they were looking for. However, Qualcomm now has a single chip solution for 3G/4G data and voice in a single package -- as long as it is priced 'right', it could be attractive to a variety of handset makers, Apple included.

The only thing really novel about this is the CDMA portion of the chip; since LTE is the roadmap for HSDPA and GSM-based data solutions, this Qualcomm package needs to be priced carefully against the expected longevity of CDMA.

I also think Qualcomm making any PR statements like this, before there is any real news to tell, is a foreshadowing of what kind of cooperation and involvement is happening behind the scenes. My read on this is zero.

[Chupa Chupa]

Fact of the matter is CDMA is the dominate, better network in the US and until Apple makes a phone that works on CDMA in the US we will be stuck using a great phone on a subpar network.


That may be A fact, but Apple has to consider an array of them, and bigger than that one is that Apple markets the iPhone WORLDWIDE, and GSM is far, far, more prevalent worldwide.

I think it's safe to conclude Apple's goal is to make production as unified and inexpensive as possible, which means make one model and modify the firmware when necessary, which is cheap.

Also, true, CDMA will be around for a while still, but it will be to support legacy phones. NO new smartphone will be use CDMA a couple years after LTE rolls out. Verizon's CEO has already said they are going hard and fast to LTE for smartphones. ATT will do the same.

[thetexan]

That may be A fact, but Apple has to consider an array of them, and bigger than that one is that Apple markets the iPhone WORLDWIDE, and GSM is far, far, more prevalent worldwide.

I think it's safe to conclude Apple's goal is to make production as unified and inexpensive as possible, which means make one model and modify the firmware when necessary, which is cheap.

Also, true, CDMA will be around for a while still, but it will be to support legacy phones. NO new smartphone will be use CDMA a couple years after LTE rolls out. Verizon's CEO has already said they are going hard and fast to LTE for smartphones. ATT will do the same.

The point where new phones stop being made for CMDA is still another good five years away. Hard and fast in the business world doesn't mean squat.

Other companies are able to have CDMA and GSM variants with few problems, so Apple's only excuse is laziness. Although the iPhone has only one model with one radio Apple still has countless bugs and problems in the firmware, so maybe they aren't able to handle programming for two radios.

[rowr]

Fact of the matter is CDMA is the dominate, better network in the US and until Apple makes a phone that works on CDMA in the US we will be stuck using a great phone on a subpar network.

100% agreed - i'll go one further by venting my extreme displeasure for GSM's terrible voice quality.

My concern about a Verizon iPhone would be based on Verizon's track record of crippling the firmware in phones they sell as a means to generate revenue. Sprint allows you to use a wide-open phone but Verizon phones typically have most of that disabled in a way that forces you to buy Verizon add-on services for simple things like uploading your own mp3s, etc.


Either way, i'll be glad when the day comes that a company other than AT&T and Verizon are marketing the phone.

[bigfoot]

...I do think that Verizon wants us all to believe that a Verizon iPhone is coming....it will delay the mass exodus to AT&T and whoever is next (T-Mobile?).

My contract with Verizon being over... I stopped wishing upon wishes, and just jumped ship to the iPhone. I was tempted by the Droid and played with it for a good long while. Then I played with the iPhone... it was a no brainer. Not going to miss Verizon's customer service either. Always felt like they were doing you a favor. So far AT&T has been service with a smile... we'll see. Hopefully they'll continue to try harder and improve.

[Nermal]

The point where new phones stop being made for CMDA is still another good five years away. Hard and fast in the business world doesn't mean squat.

Verizon could still push for LTE phones. My carrier in NZ rolled out UMTS about six months ago and immediately stopped selling CDMA phones. You can still buy CDMA phones from third-party resellers but as you can see (http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.filereader?4b04a30e00367cc4273fc0a87f3b0687+EN/catalogs/CTG0002121) the range is getting quite small. As time goes on, more and more users will be on UMTS and the CDMA market will shrink. I can imagine Verizon doing a similar push.

[ktlx]

Also, true, CDMA will be around for a while still, but it will be to support legacy phones. NO new smartphone will be use CDMA a couple years after LTE rolls out. Verizon's CEO has already said they are going hard and fast to LTE for smartphones. ATT will do the same.
You can bet all the money in your pocket that it will be years before Verizon ships a new smartphone not capable of falling back to CDMA. Even after Verizon completes its deployment of LTE, its network will still be capable of handling CDMA because Verizon won't instantly go dark CDMA in 2014 as long as its locked in a battle over customers with AT&T. As long as Qualcomm is providing a CDMA/LTE chipset, Verizon will force its handset vendors to use it.

Verizon won't force its customer to chose between upgrading their CDMA smart phones to LTE on either AT&T or Verizon until the cost of losing those customers is outweighed by maintaining the legacy network. For analog, that cutoff was years later.

[mathcolo]

My concern about a Verizon iPhone would be based on Verizon's track record of crippling the firmware in phones they sell as a means to generate revenue. Sprint allows you to use a wide-open phone but Verizon phones typically have most of that disabled in a way that forces you to buy Verizon add-on services for simple things like uploading your own mp3s, etc..

100% disagree; look at the Motorola Droid. Is it crippled? Nope.

[bogg]

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.7 (Windows Mobile; PPC; Opera Mobi/35166; U; en) Presto/2.2.1)

yeah..because One of all the phones they are or have been selling is a good example on how it Usually is.

[heisetax]

100% disagree; look at the Motorola Droid. Is it crippled? Nope.

If the Droid works for Verizon, Verizon will have their first lesson in allowing their phones to do all that the manufacturer & software has made it to do. That will open the way for the iPhone to work without the cuts that Verizon has done with every other telephone in the past until the Droid.

I have learned to live a cell phone that just provides cell phone service & forget about all of those things that could be useful.

[greygray]

Thank God. Now let's pray the Verizon iPhone threads come to a stop. :rolleyes:

[Full of Win]

I thought that Apple did not like suppliers making ANY comments to the press, other than NO comment.

[Prom1]

You can bet all the money in your pocket that it will be years before Verizon ships a new smartphone not capable of falling back to CDMA. Even after Verizon completes its deployment of LTE, its network will still be capable of handling CDMA because Verizon won't instantly go dark CDMA in 2014 as long as its locked in a battle over customers with AT&T. As long as Qualcomm is providing a CDMA/LTE chipset, Verizon will force its handset vendors to use it.

Verizon won't force its customer to chose between upgrading their CDMA smart phones to LTE on either AT&T or Verizon until the cost of losing those customers is outweighed by maintaining the legacy network. For analog, that cutoff was years later.

it all depends onthe initial roll-out and consumer/business uptake of the new network. Here in Canada two providers: Bell & Telus Mobility's rolled out HSPA+ networks over their CDMA and next year or two will go LTE. HSPA+ has been deployed at 93% coverage nationwide andwith the advantage of having voice and data at the same time - that is the speed of business and what consumers want.

Also the poor choice of half amr codec tha AT&T supports is the reason of poor voice calls and other issues of frequent calls being dropped are another matter.

Also not all manufacturers have dual-mode phones; Nokia, Apple, Motorola no longer does do they, samsung has 1 specific model just like RIM releases every 8mths+ this is NOT. A formula of successful sales or supply of phones or smartphones a carrier places their hedges against. Oh wait does HTC hybrid CDMA/WCDMA device??

If coverage can be extended or matched Verizon will phase out CDMA in favor of LTE in roughly 5yrs keeping emergency forces, internal business on while using that spectrum for more LTE support if it can. It didn't. Take too long for tema to die. Also how many of you out there usig hybrid dual-mode devices have had a smooth CDMA to GSM/WCDMA handoff?!! You would need two separate lines each on a different provider for that! I'm still reading to see reports here in Canada where we have this ability on 1 provider. However gsm to wcdma or back again works flawlessly and with a properly setup network, you would not notice.

[kryptonianjorel]

100% agreed - i'll go one further by venting my extreme displeasure for GSM's terrible voice quality.

My concern about a Verizon iPhone would be based on Verizon's track record of crippling the firmware in phones they sell as a means to generate revenue. Sprint allows you to use a wide-open phone but Verizon phones typically have most of that disabled in a way that forces you to buy Verizon add-on services for simple things like uploading your own mp3s, etc.


Either way, i'll be glad when the day comes that a company other than AT&T and Verizon are marketing the phone.

Long gone are the days of crippled firmware. Verizon has really turned a new leaf. While I still cant do things like uploading my own ringtones (but thank god for bitpim) They've really loosened up. The Droid opens up a new era or openness. 100% hands off. Now, VZW would be the perfect provider is they'd stay hands off for the devices permanently, and focused only on the network.

it all depends onthe initial roll-out and consumer/business uptake of the new network. Here in Canada two providers: Bell & Telus Mobility's rolled out HSPA+ networks over their CDMA and next year or two will go LTE. HSPA+ has been deployed at 93% coverage nationwide andwith the advantage of having voice and data at the same time - that is the speed of business and what consumers want.

Also the poor choice of half amr codec tha AT&T supports is the reason of poor voice calls and other issues of frequent calls being dropped are another matter.

Also not all manufacturers have dual-mode phones; Nokia, Apple, Motorola no longer does do they, samsung has 1 specific model just like RIM releases every 8mths+ this is NOT. A formula of successful sales or supply of phones or smartphones a carrier places their hedges against. Oh wait does HTC hybrid CDMA/WCDMA device??

If coverage can be extended or matched Verizon will phase out CDMA in favor of LTE in roughly 5yrs keeping emergency forces, internal business on while using that spectrum for more LTE support if it can. It didn't. Take too long for tema to die. Also how many of you out there usig hybrid dual-mode devices have had a smooth CDMA to GSM/WCDMA handoff?!! You would need two separate lines each on a different provider for that! I'm still reading to see reports here in Canada where we have this ability on 1 provider. However gsm to wcdma or back again works flawlessly and with a properly setup network, you would not notice.

VZWs CDMA network will be around for AT LEAST 5 years past the public introduction of LTE. VZW pushed a lot of money into its CDMA network, and it will continue to reap the benefits for years to come. It is a mature network, and a very large one at that, and doesn't make sense to turn it off so quickly. Once LTE is mature, I think it would be wise to use the CDMA network for voice and light data (who knows that kind of data services our phones will be using 5 years from now) and rely on LTE for heavy data use.

BTW, you must not have ever used a CDMA world phone, eh? It has a soft switch to change between CDMA and GSM, so when I leave the US, I can turn off CDMA (since its no good in Europe) and only have the GSM radio on. Why would I want to switch between a CDMA tower and a GSM tower on the fly?

[acidfast7]

why does anyone care about 3g anymore?. we're doing a nationwide LTE rollout and I expect 150Mb/s in Stockholm next year (and 99% nationwide coverage before 2013)

[Full of Win]

why does anyone care about 3g anymore?. we're doing a nationwide LTE rollout and I expect 150Mb/s in Stockholm next year (and 99% nationwide coverage before 2013)

Why care? Because we have 200 times the area of Sweden, and therefore extending coverage of newer protocols can be an issue.

I guess a better way to think about it that we you have 5X the population density, so one tower can service more people thereby making it more economical.

[christian_k]

Wrong on so many counts.

Apple doesn't design the phone for US Centric Carriers. They chose GSM because it's the global standard.

Right.
I wonder why so many people think :LTE=Verizon.
LTE is also the next step after GSM/EDGE/UMTS/HS(D)PA everywhere in the world. So
AT&T and T-Mo in the US will use LTE sooner or later.

So there will be an iPhone with GSM/UMTS/HSPA/LTE sooner or later. This is the way t go globally. Additional support for CDMA is possible, but not a must.

Christian

[Blinkwing]

100% disagree; look at the Motorola Droid. Is it crippled? Nope.

250MB install space for apps.

Crippled? Nah. Stillborn? Yes.

[bergmef]

Right.
I wonder why so many people think :LTE=Verizon.
LTE is also the next step after GSM/EDGE/UMTS/HS(D)PA everywhere in the world. So
AT&T and T-Mo in the US will use LTE sooner or later.

So there will be an iPhone with GSM/UMTS/HSPA/LTE sooner or later. This is the way t go globally. Additional support for CDMA is possible, but not a must.

Christian

I think in the US, they think that because Verizon is already rolling it out, no other reason.

If the iphone goes to verizon (I'm all for it personally), I would not be shocked to see it as a CDMA phone (voice) with LTE data and a fallback for CDMA data (with non-simultaneous voice).

A new question, is SVDO a tower upgrade? Software or hardware? Will it work with 'older' handsets?

[mccldwll]

Makes sense except that they went to a CDMA carrier first with the iPhone.


While that's certainly part of the iPhone urban legend, it's far from an established fact. Yes, aapl talked to vz about the iPhone. But since aapl always intended to build a phone for the global markets, it's far more likely that meeting with vz was simply to threaten T with going elsewhere. Aapl need far more than good pricing from a partner carrier. Aapl needed that partner to spend $$$ on network upgrades, and to let aapl run the show which was essential to iPhone's success. vz wasn't desperate enough from customer churn to do that, but T was. aapl knew this going in.

[mccldwll]

Other companies are able to have CDMA and GSM variants with few problems, so Apple's only excuse is laziness. Although the iPhone has only one model with one radio Apple still has countless bugs and problems in the firmware, so maybe they aren't able to handle programming for two radios.


Is that a joke or a troll? "Laziness" is never a factor in any very competitive commercial enterprise. And "has only one model with one radio Apple still has countless bugs and problems in the firmware" is not only false, but sounds like language straight from nok's talking points.

[bergmef]

Is that a joke or a troll? "Laziness" is never a factor in any very competitive commercial enterprise. And "has only one model with one radio Apple still has countless bugs and problems in the firmware" is not only false, but sounds like language straight from nok's talking points.

I think it was ignorance. It's a contract thing. If there is an exclusive ATT contract, why develop a phone that won't be used. Do some background work in case you do need it, then either go all out on development or use it publicly as a stick to hit ATT with for a better contract. I think the will not sign another exclusive deal, the first one was, in my opinion, to set everything up. They don't need it anymore. Everyone wants their product, they've made the cell company the dumb pipe. Up next, cable companies.

[kdarling]

Apple doesn't design the phone for US Centric Carriers. They chose GSM because it's the global standard.

I would argue that the first iPhone model was designed mostly for AT&T in the USA, as it was EDGE only and relied (still relies) on WiFi as a crutch more than any other smartphone. This saved production costs, and fit AT&T with its lesser 3G coverage.

The first iPhone model sold poorly in other countries where 3G is dominant, and EDGE barely exists. Once the 3G model came out, foreign sales finally took off.

If Verizon had accepted Apple, the CDMA model would've undoubtedly been 3G from the start, as Verizon only sold 3G smartphones at the time.

[Mind The Mac]

I would argue that the first iPhone model was designed mostly for AT&T in the USA, as it was EDGE only and relied (still relies) on WiFi as a crutch more than any other smartphone. This saved production costs, and fit AT&T with its lesser 3G coverage.

The first iPhone model sold poorly in other countries where 3G is dominant, and EDGE barely exists. Once the 3G model came out, foreign sales finally took off.

If Verizon had accepted Apple, the CDMA model would've undoubtedly been 3G from the start, as Verizon only sold 3G smartphones at the time.

Not sure this would have been the case. Verizon's CDMA is mainly limited to the US and at the time a combined CDMA/UMTS(3g) chip was not available. Put in context, Verizon only offered about 60m subscribers, UMTS worldwide is huge by comparison. China's two mobile companies and Vodafone alone offer nearly 500m subscribers.

Also an earlier poster noted the "other world carriers are way behind the curve". Check this link to the GSMA http://gsmworld.com/our-work/mobile_broadband/networks.aspx

Quite a few on 21mbps, many on 14.4mbps and loads on at least 7.2mbps. AT&T needs to jump to 21mbps and then follow on with LTE. Apple should make the next iPhone 21mbps compatible and then go LTE in 2011.

[Nermal]

Also an earlier poster noted the "other world carriers are way behind the curve". Check this link to the GSMA http://gsmworld.com/our-work/mobile_broadband/networks.aspx

Quite a few on 21mbps, many on 14.4mbps and loads on at least 7.2mbps. AT&T needs to jump to 21mbps and then follow on with LTE. Apple should make the next iPhone 21mbps compatible and then go LTE in 2011.

Indeed, AT&T's network would do with some work. I'm getting pretty decent speeds here, but as far as I'm aware you'd be extremely lucky to do this well with AT&T:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/627909472.png

[twoodcc]

i just don't see this happening. i guess it's possible though