The iPhone May Be Coming to Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile

There have been persistent but unconfirmed reports that Verizon will be getting the Apple iPhone this year, ending AT&T's exclusive right to offer this very popular smartphone. According to an industry analyst, this will be only the beginning.

Tim Horan from Oppenheimer & Co. predicts that T-Mobile USA will be getting the iPhone this summer, with Verizon and Sprint starting sales of it this fall.

Clearwire could begin offering a version of this model next year, apparently with the 4G standard WiMAX.

Wow. Just... Wow.
If Horan is correct, a very significant change is coming to the U.S. phone market. Apple's smartphone is among the most widely used in the industry, despite being available only from AT&T ever since its debut in 2007. This has left other wireless carriers struggling to find their own models that can rival the iPhone in popularity.

Obviously, this process will no longer be necessary if the iPhone is available to all the top carriers.

Who Wins and Who Loses
The big winner in this change -- if it happens, and that's a big "if" -- would be consumers, who will be able to get an Apple smartphone without having to be an AT&T subscriber.

Also coming out ahead would be Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. They will be able to offer a very successful product to their customers. And iPhone users spend more for monthly wireless service than average.

Apple would also be a winner, as it will undoubtedly sell more smartphones. Oppenheimer's Horan predicts that sales could double or even triple. This wouldn't come without costs, though.  Sprint and Verizon use a different wireless networking standard from AT&T and T-Mobile, so Apple will be forced to add support for CDMA to the iPhone line.

The big loser would be, clearly, AT&T. It would certainly continue to sell many, many iPhones, but not as many as before. And it wouldn't be able to lure in new subscribers with this device.

Another loser would be the other smartphone operating systems, including the Android OS, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Mobile. Many customers have been turning to phones running these platforms because they wanted a device that's similar to the iPhone, but didn't want to switch to AT&T. If this model is available everywhere, these customers will be able to get the iPhone they want.

Source: Barron's