Peon's Place

Verizon Wireless will be selling the iPhone in January, according to a report filed by Bloomberg. Representatives from both Apple and Verizon did not comment on the matter, but Bloomberg is extremely confident about this one having verified it with two sources “who declined to be named because the information isn’t public.” Let’s just hope this Verizon iPhone has a better antenna system than the iPhone 4 as we know it.

The iPhone, which has been the sole domain of rival AT&T in the U.S. since June 2007, will give Verizon a boost in its competition for smartphone customers, UBS AG analyst John Hodulik said in an interview. Verizon customers, who numbered 92.8 million at the end of the first quarter, may buy 3 million iPhones a quarter, he estimates. “Apple is going to dramatically increase the number of devices it sells in the U.S. when exclusivity at AT&T ends,” said Hodulik, who is based in New York and rates Verizon shares “neutral.” “It’s hard to ignore the quality issues that AT&T has faced.”

No more need to jailbreak hack your iPhone! AT&T is testing, with the OS 4.0 beta software, the possibility to allow users to naturally tether their phone.

What is tethering you may ask? It basically utilizes the 3G coverage and turns your phone into a wireless hub, allowing your laptop to connect to it when you are not near a Starbucks, etc, for Wi-Fi access. Granted, your speed is limited to that of your 3G signal, but it’s better than playing solitare!

iPhone users rejoice… ?

We’ve known for quite some time that AT&T was planning to step up its 3G network in a big way over the coming months, but we didn’t exactly think it would be as big of an improvement as Engadget and Gizmodo are reporting. Apparently AT&T’s Operations CEO John Stankey was at a Reuters event in New York City and mentioned AT&T is going to more than double the speeds of its current 7.2Mbps 3G network by the time we’re all chucking out our 2010 calendars.

AT&T’s made great strides in fixing its network in the past few months, and while we don’t expect it to be anything like T-Mobile’s 21Mbps network, customers would be pretty happy if it meant that all of the 250 million people Stankey had could access a networkwith theoretical speeds hovering around 14.4Mbps.

Another week, another analyst weighing in on the iPhone’s future.

Sources predict that because of a deal AT&T cut with Apple for the iPad 3G, the U.S. telecommunications giant will continue to have carrier exclusivity for the iPhone until at least 2011. His reasoning goes like this: Apple hasn’t been happy with AT&T’s network performance for the iPhone. AT&T wanted to remain the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Apple phone, keeping it out of rival Verizon Wireless’ hands. So it offered a generous and recurring monthly data program for the iPad.

One thing, though: another firm, Global Wireless Solutions, released a study this week comparing all the major wireless providers in New York City. It found that both Verizon and AT&T were about 99% reliable, with throughput up to 20 times what they offered five years ago. Assuming that GWS’ data is accurate, and that AT&T did actually make the iPad deal to keep the iPhone away from Verizon a little bit longer, maybe that deal doesn’t matter–at least for iPhone owners in New York.