Is Apple hanging up on AT&T?

As an employee of Verizon Wireless, I can assure you we are NOT Verizon Communications! They own a little over 50% of us which gets their name on our company. Vodafone still own the rest and we like it that way! We are NOT publicly traded like AT&T. Verizon Wireless is private/employee owned so we don't have stupid stockholders running our company. Most employees and all the customers I personally know like the company and the service they receive for the price they pay. I happen to work in the network side of the house and we are constantly working to improve out network and company so our customers continue to like the service we provide. So come on over Apple!

This may be a little off subject but I work for ATT & I have to agree whole heartedly with the comment made that "employees are seen as commodities". I am not a big Union fan however I can see no other way to get ATT to listen to us except thru a union. If we should have to strike I hope the community in general will understand.

If I understand doing business correctly - You greet first, shake hands second, sit down and state your case about a product or wanting to sell it. Carriers and regional cell companies can do the same with APPLE's Steve Jobs. I mean how do you think AT&T got its grimey hands on the device. Some thing happened for it to land in their column. If you want something to happen - You have to do your part too....Set up a meeting bug the heck out of him.

It's a different world from the Bell days and the carriers are up to their old tricks to try to limit competition and pad profits without adding value. (Hey - I have been saying this for a long time!!!) If we keep giving preferential treatment to AT&T and Verizon - this is exactly what is going to happen. Things are going to get a lot worse. They want LTE and Sprint and its partners want Wimax. Why not a consensus for Wimax first, then after it is reality move on to LTE. I don't know what the rush is to out do one another. No Behemoth number one and number two are not big enough. The FCC allowed this debackle to occurr. Now it is up to APPlE to break up this mess going on with these two conglomerates. Let all the carriers and regional cell companies get the Iphone including Sprint. I will say it again these two titans are trying and succeeding at stifling competition. (There is no better way of saying it.....)The phoney baloney in the billing department gets worse and worse - the bigger they get. There bottom lines gets better and the consumer loses all the time. P.S. when Verizon Fios came to your neighborhood did prices go down. I doubt it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AT&T and Verizon are one and the same. If it weren't for Vonage and MCI we would still be using rotary dial phones. These guys don't understand competitive markets and time to market is a foreign concept to them. I love Apple, the way it does business, the excellent engineering, great customer service. I hate to see them do business with either one. Apple makes either AT&T or Verizon better but the difference between Apple and these guys makes them look all the worse. This article makes me wonder about the people who write these things.

Verizon is at heart a telco just like AT&T. Neither company embraces innovation or open networks....the author's idea that Verizon would be embraced is ludicrous.

Do you seriously think Verizon is "a company more in tune with Apple's entrepreneurial flair"? Whose kool aid have you been drinking? Verizon is just as much a monolith with a serious attitude problem (Remember CEO saying he was glad he passed on the iPhone?) as AT&T and is about as entrepreneurial as the U.S. govt. I will be shocked if you don't get similar reaction to others who have experience doing business, if you can call it that, with Verizon.

In the meantime, Apple is making a huge mistake not going with all carriers. They have proven the carriers are the commodity here. It's a different world from the Bell days and the carriers are up to their old tricks to try to limit competition and pad profits without adding value.

Lets face it, the "new AT&T" is in reality the old SBC, one of the most difficult companies ever known to do business with. Vendors and partners were viewed as adversaries, and that culture remains within AT&T. Employees are seen as commodities. Telecommuting? Forget it. Apple is probably chomping at the bit to be rid of them as a partner. Ed Whitacre was the architect at SBC of this culture, and now he's going to head up the new GM. Not encouraging for GM's employees and many suppliers.