I am not sure why anyone thinks the exclusivity can be broken. It is a business deal. It has a contract with it. There is a lot of money, kick backs, and other stuff at stake. No way the lawyers let this agreement be broken.
Apple got visual voicemail, absolute control, secrecy, subsidies, kick backs, etc.
AT&T got new subscribers and a hook no other carrier can dangle.
You all better come to grips with exclusivity, cause it aint going away until 2011.
I have no idea if the exclusivity agreement is really disputable or not. Successfully, I mean. Anyone can sue anyone over practically anything in the U.S.
As far as I've seen, I've been the only person to suggest it to this degree.
But when I look at this situation, I think, if Apple is providing apps to iPhone 3Gs all over the world, and wants to have one app store for the iPhone OS (even though we know there are two) -- why should ATT be able to block the sale of a tethering app for everyone? Of course, I can't imagine only ATT would be against such an app.
But still, there's a real divergence of interests between Apple and ATT or really any carrier over 3rd party smart phone software development. The same for Android OS, but much more so, specifically because it is not tied up in an exclusivity deal. That non-carrier exclusivity gives the Android OS much more weight in the market than Apple can get riding on ATT.
It seems like there are just a few players in the upcoming mobile app / network game.
1. mobile device manufacturers;
2. people who manage app stores and quasi-open to open mobile device OS's;
3. existing web service providers;
4. 3rd party app developers who are very successful (a thoroughly relative term);
5. people who own and operate a network.
For the most part, it seems like players 1-4 have a lot to gain by pushing against player 5. Consumers have a lot to gain if players 1-4 do push against player 5. And, Apple is basically players 1, 2, and 3 at the same time.
Apple would benefit tremendously by being unhooked from ATT, not just in relation to the iPhone, but also because the iPhone connects with your home entertainment network over cellular. A lot of music is going to be streaming over the cellular network to people's iPhones, and with that a lot of behavioral data in terms of music listening. That data is worth money to a company that wants to sell all media content digitally. Apple can figure out a way to get a piece of that, and that's worth more than whatever they got from ATT for carrier-exclusivity. And that's just one way. The bigger stake is in mobile apps, and that definitely goes the same direction.
More and more, network service providers offer only one product: access to the internet. If we had a completely stable cellular data network, we could talk to each other on Skype all day. (One thing cellular providers should have done is increased the bandwidth for voice data, to make people sound more like people; given how many cell to cell conversations there are, that would have actually added some value to cell phone service.) Anyway, everyone just wants the internet all the time. That's it. I use my iPhone as a phone <2% of the time I'm using it.
It's like record labels and the recording industry to a degree. Record labels have no real product that differentiates them from one another. No one knows or cares which label a record comes out on.... until now. Now, people just avoid the recording industry, because of, well, increasing amounts of hatred. At least in one way, companies who provide network access are in the same boat. They all offer one thing: internet access. Anything else they can give you, like cable TV, or phone calls, or music -- all of that can just come from the internet.
It's a real change. I don't know what's going to happen. But I do think Apple should get unhitched if it can. What are they getting from ATT really, except money that they might be better off not having with whatever conditions come attached to that money. Given how much apps are going to make, Apple should be selling the iPhone at a loss.
