Pegatron to Deliver CDMA iPhone 4s to Apple in Q4?

[Merwenn]

Although I don't see the point in the 4th Gen iPhone being released with Verizon with the impending change to 4G (LTE) I just wanted to share that I was driving in midtown Manhattan on Monday when I noticed someone in the back seat of a car next to me who had 4 iPhone 4s in holders stuck to the side window with the goose necks bent down so that nobody on that side of the car could see them from outside. I let down my window and spoke to the driver of the car and said "4 iPhone 4s, that's a lot." The driver looked rather shocked and said "We're testing them" To which I said "Who for?" He didn't appear to know what to say and looked over his shoulder at the person in the back who was glaring at him. He didn't say anything else and hurridly made a right to get out of traffic. As the car turned right I saw a glimpse of the screen of the laptop that the person in the back who was looking at the iPhone 4s had on his lap. I saw what appeared to be a Verizon logo, and noted that the car had Pennsylvania plates as it sped back towards the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel from 9th Avenue. I just got home and did a google search and I think I saw that the Verizon Wireless headquarters are outside Pittsburgh, PA.

Interesting story. I was told about 3 weeks ago by a Verizon engineer that they were working on their network to support the iPhone, however, he said that didn't mean that it was coming out any time soon, if at all. He actually said they were doing it half-assed, which I found a little odd.

Also, I'm pretty sure Verizon Headquarters (including Wireless) is in Basking Ridge, NJ and/or in NYC.

 

[MorphingDragon]

You completely missed the point.

My point was that regardless of "what everyone says" Apple still stands to make a considerable profit by allowing their iPhone to operate on CDMA networks. Even if CDMA is not the newest best thing, it will still be around for years and customers will still have devices operating on it. Thus, Apple will make a profit - which regardless of PR and whatnot, is their chief goal.

But then I wonder, how much is the outspoken few do they actually represent? A group of 5 people shouting is louder than a crowd of 20 whispering.

 

[Rocketman]

I would like to see Apple release a CDMA EOL iPhone at MWSF 2011 in January, then release an AT&T LTE handset on the same day. You can use Verizon's LTE network only on an AT&T handset and with a Verizon roaming contract (ten bucks) administered through AT&T. That way you get AT&T customer service, some Verizon network access, and the new better AT&T pricing plans and speed. The best of all worlds, and Apple gets to keep telling Verizon, "we told you so."



Rocketman

 

[ChrisGonzales90]

AT&T Wireless.... not AT&T (as a whole).

It's still AT&T. AT&T wireless is not a separate company. It's the same. It's just a service that AT&T offers. Remember AT&T offered HOME phone service 20 years ago. You know when you dialed a number from your corded headset in your living room.

And the biggest GSM provider in the world is larger than that. Just under half a mil? GSM is well over 1 billion and its not a stretch to say 2 billion.

What's so great about GSM? Because the one billion "cool kids" are on it?

 

[MorphingDragon]

I must disagree. I know a RF engineer who does testing and stuff on all the cell towers in New England. He says that CDMA is the best there is. And he is even using AT&T. Unless you're a genius that knows more stuff than a RF engineer.. I have to disagree with you.

CDMA was the better tech. It is far better suitable for heavier populated areas.

Being the superior tech has nothing to do with this, as there is now W-CDMA and UTMS and HSPDA+

What's so great about GSM? Because the one billion "cool kids" are on it?

Completely missing the context of the argument.

Ask yourself, if you were deciding what to put resources into, a market that is 500 Million big or a market that is billions big...

Hmm... That's a toughie.

 

[ChrisGonzales90]

CDMA was the better tech. It is far better suitable for heavier populated areas.

It still lost to GSM, now its dying.

And GSM will die as 4G wimax takes over. Yes it's still new and will take a few years to catch on but 4G is the future.

 

[CubusX]

Are you kidding?

My gut tells me that there will be no Verizon iPhone in the near future. That being said, if we're all wrong and there will be one then I'm convinced we'll hear about it shortly before 6/24...specifically an "accidental" leak from somebody @ Verizon...not these leaks from manufacturing facilities halfway around the world. No way V would want all these potential customers locked up in 2 year contracts with AT+T if we're only talking a matter of a few months, especially if AT+T is letting existing customers have early upgrades. fwiw, I'm a V customer now, but will be jumping ship and already pre-ordered an iPhone4. I'm tired of waiting for V and Apple to make something happen.

Why would Verizon care if there are people locked into contracts with AT&T for two years? Do you know how easy it is to port your number between carriers?

You give Verizon your acccount number and current cell phone number and 5 minutes later your number is ported over.

AT&T made this sound like it was a huge pain to accomplish, they didn't want to loose sales.

Verizon could be doing this so Apple dose not loose any money from loss of iPhone 4 sales on AT&T. Then when these customers (who signed new 2 year agreements with AT&T switch to Verizon) Apple is selling more devices.

Verzion and AT&T are looking out for Apple's bottom line (along with their own).

 

[satcomer]

If Verizon does go LTE then I will wait for the CDMA version of iPhone 4.

 

[Xian Zhu Xuande]

Awe but then the whole "unlock iPhone" business would begin to decrease :/ think of all the people who scam others! What will they do then? How will they feed their families?

Why, exactly? It isn't like the presently unlocked iPhones work on Verizon anyway—

 

[Captainobvvious]

Cungular was owned by AT&T (previously SBC + AT&T(Ma Bell)). All they did was do a name+marketing change.

AT&T and Cingular were national competitors for years then merged and were branded with the Cingular name, then went back to the AT&T name soon after.

It was definitely a merger.

 

[bergmef]

I must disagree. I know a RF engineer who does testing and stuff on all the cell towers in New England. He says that CDMA is the best there is. And he is even using AT&T. Unless you're a genius that knows more stuff than a RF engineer.. I have to disagree with you.

It (cdma technology) is the best, in my opinion, it's just not the global standard. Kinda like windows having 90+ percent of the market.

 

[beamer8912]

So...Apple can make CDMA phones but not a White GSM phone?

 

[diamond.g]

It's still AT&T. AT&T wireless is not a separate company. It's the same. It's just a service that AT&T offers. Remember AT&T offered HOME phone service 20 years ago. You know when you dialed a number from your corded headset in your living room.

Hmm, I seem to remember Cingular buying AT&T Wireless (which was in-fact separate from AT&T Proper) before SBC bought the rest of AT&T.

 

[Branflakes]

Why would Verizon care if there are people locked into contracts with AT&T for two years? Do you know how easy it is to port your number between carriers?

You give Verizon your acccount number and current cell phone number and 5 minutes later your number is ported over.

AT&T made this sound like it was a huge pain to accomplish, they didn't want to loose sales.

Verizon could be doing this so Apple dose not loose any money from loss of iPhone 4 sales on AT&T. Then when these customers (who signed new 2 year agreements with AT&T switch to Verizon) Apple is selling more devices.

Verzion and AT&T are looking out for Apple's bottom line (along with their own).

Your argument is rendered invalid by AT&T's $300+ early termination fee.

 

[stewart715]

Not this crap again! People really have hopes for Verizon don't they?

Obviously because the worlds worst network with the worlds highest rates isn't exactly appealing.

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

While obviously skeptical, think about this: If AT&T knew that Apple was going to eventually go to Verizon as well wouldn't you want to get as many people as possible to sign into a 2 year contract BEFORE the announce of a verizon iphone. It would make sense for AT&T to allow early eligibility for customers not otherwise eligible because they want that new contract to be with them instead of verizon whom they could leave to if they had allowed them to wait out their contract. It all makes sense now...

it makes sense? then why did AT&T do the same early upgrade the last two years as well? was there a CDMA iPhone waiting in the wings back in 07-08?

 

[aristotle]

No one cares about the southern hemisphere. This is all about China and the US.

GL

LOL Oh wait, are you serious? CDMA2000 (the form of CDMA used in the US) is used by Verizon Sprint and a few latin American countries. The majority of 3GS sales this past year were sold "outside" of the US. Get your head out of your arse and look around. Canada was a significant CDMA market until the major CDMA carriers launched their HSPA+ network last november and those carriers have been pushing their new network over their CDMA one to both new customers and people with a contract about to expire. The major CDMA (not CDMA2000) markets in Asia have either converted or are converting over to GSM technologies. Some have switched to HSPA+ while others are transitioning straight to LTE.

Given these developments, it make absolutely no sense for a CDMA phone to come out in 2011. If it was ever going to come, it would be here right now and even that makes little sense since it would be little more than an iPod touch outside of the Verizon/Sprint network. Nobody in Canada is clamouring for a CDMA phone either since we have HSPA+ networks that are better than any of the carriers in the US in terms of call quality and data speed and our iPhone 4's will be sold as either unlocked straight from Apple or subsidized and locked to the carrier.

 

[MorphingDragon]

And GSM will die as 4G wimax takes over. Yes it's still new and will take a few years to catch on but 4G is the future.

I'm fully certain that GSM die out to a superior more popular standard.

What is happening to CDMA now will happen to GSM in the future. CDMA lost, its HD-DVD, its Betadisc. Used by some but a minority.

 

[AgingGeek]

Doesn't make sense. Why would you use an entire different company to manufacture the entire phone, rather then just swapping in different radios on the same assembly line.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday = GSM phones
Thursday Friday Saturday = CDMA phone

Sunday - Foxconn workers go to their other jobs.

 

[oldMac]

You won't know until it happens

A few points...

1) In the US market (the front line iPhone vs. Android battle), there are roughly the same number of CDMA phones as GSM phones.

Here is the US market share breakdown (approximate)
- AT&T ~32% (GSM)
- Verizon ~32% (CDMA)
- Sprint/Nextel ~15-20% (CDMA)
- T-Mobile ~15-20% (GSM)

2) According to the CDMA Development Group, there were 518 million worldwide subscribers using CDMA phones in Dec 2009
- Even if they've bloated that figure by 2x, that's a lot of phones

3) Nobody outside of AT&T and Apple (and probably very few people there) know when the exclusivity agreement ends - so when someone on this site says it "ends in 2011" or it "ends in 2012", they're just guessing

4) Nobody outside of AT&T and Apple will know when the agreement ends until the exclusivity agreement is actually over. Apple can't exactly "pre-announce" that kind of thing as it would be hugely detrimental to AT&T.

5) It's possible Apple can't even tell another carrier when the exclusivity of the AT&T contract ends. If AT&T was smart, they would have had that built-into the contract to prevent Apple from setting up a deal with another carrier prior to contract termination.

In my opinion, given the threat of Android, Apple needs to get the iPhone onto all US carriers as soon as possible. That means they need to be ready to roll the day the agreement ends with AT&T and be really aggressive in grabbing market share.

Given the circumstances, it's absolutely critical that Apple produce a CDMA phone for the US market as quickly as possible. But, you're not going to get a pre-announcement as that would kill AT&Ts sales.

 

[oldMac]

Doesn't make sense. Why would you use an entire different company to manufacture the entire phone, rather then just swapping in different radios on the same assembly line.

1) Maybe you want to have two manufacturers making iPhones so that they can compete on price in the future for the other half of the business.

2) Maybe you want to have two manufacturers so that if one falls down (has a fire, strike, poor production ramp up, earthquake, etc.), the other can pick up the slack.

 

[CubusX]

Not realyl

Your argument is rendered invalid by AT&T's $300+ early termination fee.

I paid the early termination fee to get off of AT&T's network (even when I had the iPhone). It was only $185 at the time.

People would pay more to get away from AT&T when the iPhone is available on other networks.

You will see.

 

[huntercr]

Doesn't make sense. Why would you use an entire different company to manufacture the entire phone, rather then just swapping in different radios on the same assembly line.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday = GSM phones
Thursday Friday Saturday = CDMA phone

Sunday - Foxconn workers go to their other jobs.

They probably bid cheaper than foxconn. Since its technically a different product, they were probably seeking bids and foxconn declined to go any cheaper. ( or were tapped out )

 

[ChrisGonzales90]

[

AT&T and Cingular were national competitors for years then merged and were branded with the Cingular name, then went back to the AT&T name soon after.

It was definitely a merger.

If anyone remembers the old ads


"welcome to the new AT&T".

I think most who don't remember is stuff are bellow the age of 15.

So...Apple can make CDMA phones but not a White GSM phone?

Ere is a reason why white is not available yet. And there are plenty of topics about that elsewhere on he site.

 

[gri]

Oh no, what do I do?

Do I enjoy my iPhone 4 for six months and then port back to VZW or do I return my iPhone 4 keep my VZW phone and hold out for 6 months only to find out the rumors are not true, curse myself and then wait another 6 months for the iPhone 5. It's a vicious cycle.

You will do all these things anyway...
BTW, the importrant question is for me - will a CDMA phone support international roaming, i.e. can I use it if I am abroad in Europe let say where there is no CDMA but the GSM standard. Will an CDMA iPhone include a GSM chip?