Today Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg disputed a few beliefs about Apple’s past dealings with Verizon as well as ruling out any dealings with the company until LTE technology is rolled out in 2010.
It was popular belief that Apple had originally gone to Verizon to launch its iPhone. According to Seiderberg,
Apple never seriously considered making a CDMA version of the iPhone because it didn’t have as wide a distribution opportunity.
USA Today and many others reported in 2007:
They also sparred over the iPhone. As previously reported by USA TODAY, Verizon passed on the opportunity to become the exclusive U.S. distributor, balking at Apple’s demand for control over distribution, pricing, marketing and more. That left an opening for AT&T — then called Cingular — to cement a deal. (AT&T on Monday officially dumped the Cingular name and store signs now are being switched. The move came slightly ahead of schedule.)
Denny Strigl, Verizon’s chief operating officer, decided to pass on the iPhone deal and says he has no regrets: "Time will tell" if he made the right call, he says.
Obviously there are some pretty serious contradictions there. Perhaps Mr. Seidenberg’s history is of the revisionist sort.
He also seemed to dismiss the iPhone as a possible choice in the near future:
Mr. Seidenberg also addressed the notion of Apple Inc.’s iPhone ever coming to the Verizon Wireless network, saying it is more likely that Apple would be willing to work with the carrier under the fourth-generation, or 4G, network, which follows the same technology standard as AT&T Inc.’s 4G plans.
This is some pretty bleak news for those of us who wanted to see some carrier competition for the iPhone market.
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