Obviously, this makes for much needed competition. Let's hope AT&T brings their costs down - or give us unlimited data back. If no unlimited, at least throw in the tethering that we're essentially already paying for.
I wonder if Verizon will/can offer FaceTime over 3G?
Personally, I'm cynical that the iPhone will do anything pro-consumer in terms of bringing down the size of the monthly phone bill. As such, I expect that the "competition" will be based on features, not price.
As such,
Facetime over cellular will probably be a feature offered by one of them.
I hope Verizon doesn't cripple anything on the phone for you lucky bastards who are going to get one
As a current VZW customer who has seen their handset crippling games, I'm going to be watching this factor quite closely. If I'm going to buy an iPhone, I'll switch to AT&T before considering a VZW-crippled iPhone.
This is a good news for consumers. The more choice the better. But for some of us who travel internationally, a CDMA-based phone is simply not an option.
Ditto, which is why my (work) Blackberry is on AT&T.
Of course, what also needs to happen is for international roaming rates (from the USA) to become far, far, far less outrageous ... while my work phone is "free", I don't think that my monthly bill should jump by $100/day merely because I spent ~5 days "roaming" in Europe, even if it is a smartphone using data (email downloads).
Isn't anyone surprised at how, in 2011 you have telco's that still use ageing CDMA while the rest of the world is in 3G and Edge, moving on.
It's incredible how people are willing to put up with these limitations from Verizon when the rest of the world has had these features for years. Hell even here in Australia where we have really stingy telcos we at least have rather decent cellular services...
and:
As a non-US citizen, I find this 'massive news'(!) about the iPhone being available on multiple carriers rather bemusing... But, anyway, I wish the US cell phone industry well while it struggles to catch up to the rest of the world. Amazing that a world superpower can be so behind in this respect - I think someone independent needs to take a very hard look at the seeming monopoly enjoyed by some of your cell phone operators and their charging practices.
Basically, the USA's cellular network is a legacy of Government policies that avoid regulation of capitalism, even where it is appropriate (natural monopolies). As such, the public has footed the bill to build out private, redundant networks. To use an analogy, imagine how much more expensive a new home would be, if we had to pay for different utilities (water, electrical, etc) to each install their own independent & duplicate sets of water pipes, electrical power, etc, to our street.
FWIW, I've seen some technical discussions on Analog-to-CDMA networks, etc, but the bottom line is that this is only very tenuously about technology: the way that other countries got ahead of the USA was through Government-imposed network technology standardization, regardless of if it is still the "best" tech still today.
It would interesting to see how AT&T and Verizon would compete for iphone users...
IMO, they'll compete in appearance through features, but its a longshot that they'll actually cut their prices (monthly rates). Customer lock-in is merely one of their strategies...and high ETF's is simply another.
Bottom line for me personally is that a smartphone is a nice-to-have luxury item that's simply not worth its current $1000/year premium ... not even counting when it has been far more: due to the outrageous rates on international roaming, I've had $1000/month bills.
-hh
