Verizon: “iPhone 5” Will Compete with AT&T for Global Coverage
By Matt Peckham | Friday, May 20, 2011 at 3:07 pm
I noticed this story late last night, basically another ‘iPhone 5’ tease that’s even bigger news from where I sit than whatever newfangled whatsits Apple’s tucked under the hood: global Verizon iPhone support.
The tipster: my wife. She wants a phone she can take on business trips abroad (like the U.K., or more recently, the Middle East). But the phone has to be all things. It has to work across the pond, but also in her tiny northwest Iowa hometown. Actually out of town a couple miles to where her parents’ farmhouse sits, nestled behind a tower-blocking hill, flush with trees, cows, and a compost pit. Lest you think we’re asking the moon for cheese, Verizon’s had bumper voice and data coverage across the area for years, while—nothing against them otherwise—AT&T offers neither.
News that the next-gen Verizon iPhone will include global coverage comparable to AT&T’s should galvanize international travel wonks. Worldwide mobile support’s the dealmaker (or breaker) if you’re in the business of globetrotting.
That’s not all. At the Global Technology Summit where this news went down, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said the company would sell its upcoming iPhone-whatever-they-call-it, same time as AT&T. Yep: Buh-bye, timed vendor exclusives.
And if you’ve mused about family data packs along the lines of Verizon’s family voice plans, it sounds like Verizon’s planning to offer those, too. Assuming you don’t have kids with out-of-control BitTorrent habits or a predilection for mobile-streaming Netflix 24/7, an option to combine those pricey $30-a-month individual plans sounds golden.
Now for the bad news you already knew about. Verizon says it’ll eliminate all-you-can-eat flat-fee data plans this summer, swapping in, lo and behold, tiered ones. This should surprise no one. Verizon needs to keep its increasingly crowded data network supple. Every time I venture downtown, near a state university undoubtedly rife with students toting Verizon phones, my five-bar “3G” coverage chokes.
I blame the latest data phones, YouTube, and Lolcats.
(This post republished from Techland.)
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May 21st, 2011 at 1:06 pm
I hope it has to compete with everyone because I'm holding out hope that Steve announces that the iPhone 5 will be available for every major provider including prepaid ones (Like Virgin) at WWDC.
I'd pay full unsubstidized price for an iPhone if I could use it with a prepaid company. Bonus points if I can stick with Virgin who still offers unlimited data and texting. The two things I still actually use. Even more bonus points if Virgin doesn't pull an AT&T and raise the prices for people with iPhones. That's just evil.
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:58 am
The problem is the prepay services you want are usually reselling Sprint, who use nonstandard phones, not standard unlocked phones. You can buy unlocked iPhones, even in the US, but they are standardized phones. So iPhone moving to a single model that runs on standard or nonstandard networks would likely make iPhone available everywhere in the US.
May 23rd, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Think your wife might yet be in for disappointment. Last time I looked the UK had no CDMA coverage only GSM so a Verizon phone of any description would be useless here unless you could switch to GSM
May 24th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
apple will not push another new model to the market unless they had sole enough iphone4, either the black ones or the white ones.
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