I work at Best Buy Mobile, so I am familiar with Sprint, Verizon, ATT and TMobile. I deal with customer service on a daily basis and the girl probably didn't know what she was talking about. If she knew about the iPhone, my Sprint or Verizon rep would have told my department about it already. Pretty sure that (not to say it ISN'T going to Sprint or Verizon) that the customer service lady can neither confirm or deny at this point. I mean, it's Apple. They will leak the information to us as they want.
Now about the technology. CDMA is what Sprint and Verizon use. It doesn't take a SIM card, but rather activates based off of programming the phone. GSM is what ATT and TMobile use. It is also used for unlocked phones (wouldn't it be nice?), and around the world. I will try to clear up the posts that I read.
Sprint users can roam on Verizon towers. It works the other way around. The reason for this is that they use the same technology. Verizon may buy time off of Sprints towers to gain coverage without building a tower themselves. This is how a lot of prepaid carriers work. They buy time off of the carriers towers (example: Boost Mobile buys time off of Sprints network, but not all of it. That is why you see Boost has less coverage than Sprint despite using the same towers.) This is also why, if you go to any part of the US close to the Mexican border, you might get charged international roaming fees. Your cell jumps over to the closest tower (in this case, in mexico) and thus you get charged. Without this, you wouldn't be able to travel to mexico and use your phone at all.
One guy posted that if Apple wanted to move to another carrier they wouldn't have made the iPad exclusive. They DIDN'T. It is unlocked and uses a SIM card. In the United States, you can only use it on TMobile and ATT. Around the world, you can use it ANYWHERE. We are so far behind.
Now, in terms of customer base, ATT is the largest with Verizon following close behind. The problem here is that the iPhone customer base makes up for 1/3 of ATT's customers. Without this they would be smaller than Verizon. Sprint has the cheapest all-inclusive plans, especially for smartphones (their prepackaged data plans work with, for example, Blackberries, that require a $30 data plan on other carriers and are NOT compatible with their cheaper all-inclusive data plans.)
So, onto the terms 4G and 3G. This doesn't really mean much for the near future. Yes, Sprint has a 4G network that is available some places and is launching pretty much everywhere soon. This is good, but doesn't mean we should rule out 3G at the moment. ATT is actually improving their data speeds without moving to 4G. In theory, this means they are spending less money rebuilding their network, and should have more money to give back to the consumer via price cuts, or better customer service (not saying I think this will happen....).
Another side note: Someone posted that changing to Sprint from ATT would force you into a higher rate plan because your mobile-to-mobile minutes would decrease. This is so ridiculously far from true. Sprint lets you call ANY CELL PHONE on ANY NETWORK for FREE. Only landline calls eat up your minutes. End of story.
ANYWAY, I am going to state my opinion now.
I would pretty much rule out the iPhone ever being unlocked, first of all. If they did, they would have to make it so expensive nobody would be able to buy it. They would see a HUGE drop in customers there. I think I would rule out TMobile simply because they are not popular enough in the US, and don't have enough coverage. I wouldn't completely rule them out, though. TMobile in Germany has the iPhone exclusively. Kinda makes you angry, right? I hope it goes to Sprint. They have spent a lot of time rebuilding their customer service. I can't say I notice a huge difference from the other carriers when I call. Occasionally you get a dumbass, but you do with all of the carriers. They have the best all-inclusive plans, cheapest prices, unlimited calls to cell phones, and some OKAY phones. (better than Verizon if you look at the basic phones instead of just smartphones). If it goes to Sprint, I will break my ATT contract in a heartbeat. I think that because of all the rumors, it is probably relatively true. That is usually the case. Now, if it weren't for the hype, I would say it is probably going to Verizon. They have a HUGE amount of 3G coverage. what good does a 3G or 4G network have if you aren't covered anyway. Verizon still charges a separate data plan for their smartphones. For example, the all inclusive data plan that has minutes, data, and text included will work on a regular phone, but not, for example, the DROID. Instead, you must get the talk/text bundle, then add your more expensive $30 data plan a la carte. This is why I think that the iPhone would love it there. It loves to have an exclusive plan only for itself that is more expensive. Also, they have more customers already. They also give the Primary line of family plans above a certain rate plan an upgrade every year, instead of every two years. What does this mean? more iPhones to be sold.
Anyway, we can speculate all that we want. We won't know for sure until it is actually revealed. Hopefully this helped some of you base your opinions off of some FACTS instead of what you see in commercials (not that you are expected to know all of that..). This post jumped around a bit, but I'm sorry it's late.
peace
