Did Apple promise AT&T five years?
The Apple-AT&T situation is getting muddier by the minute. First, we hear that AT&T gets six more months for their iPad data price, now we hear rumors that Apple promised AT&T a five-year exclusive from the get-go.
All of those people that would like to take their iPhones away from AT&T and head for Verizon may want to get out their crying towels. They were probably already weeping because of the rumors that Apple had given AT&T another six months of exclusivity in exchange for that low $29.95 unlimited data deal for the iPad. But now hard on the heels of that bad news comes a semi-confirmed rumor that will turn the AT&T haters skies black and fill them with rain and hail: it seems that Apple’s original deal with AT&T called for a full five years of exclusivity, an agreement that will see us all with an AT&T contract until sometime in the year 2012. There is no mercy.
Confirmation of the original Engadget rumor is coming from a number of sources, not the least of which is the Huffington Post. And it transpires that this was not even a secret. It came out in court documents way back in 2008 during a class action suit in California. These are quotes from documents filed as a part of that case:
The duration of the exclusive Apple-[AT&T] agreement was not ‘secret’ either. The [plaintiff] quotes a May 21, 2007 USA Today article – published over a month before the iPhone’s release – stating, “AT&T has exclusive U.S. distribution rights for five years-an eternity in the go-go cellphone world.
[T]here was widespread disclosure of [AT&T's] five-year exclusivity and no suggestion by Apple or anyone else that iPhones would become unlocked after two years… Moreover, it is sheer speculation – and illogical – that failing to disclose the five-year exclusivity term would produce monopoly power…
If all of this is correct, it would seem that we should have known all along that we would not be getting an iPhone from Verizon any time soon. Of course, we also would have missed a couple of years worth of rumors about the Verizon iPhone, which apparently has never even been a gleam in the eyes of any of the involved parties. Feeling let down? Sorry, if Woodward and Bernstein had been on the story, we would have known two years ago.
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May 11th, 2010
AT&T works great for me so the length of exclusivity is not important to me. Even better if it had anything to do with the iPad 3G no contact access deal. $30 a month for true unlimited data on the iPad suits me just fine.
May 11th, 2010
Probably one of the best kept tech-secret yet, however to think that for all these years potential consumers/costumers have been lead on… it somehow makes me wonder if that is a smart business practice?