Apple and AT&T Exclusivity Ending?

Yesterday, Apple unveiled its new iPad, (stay tuned, Virginia will fill you in on that soon), and discussed the future of portability. It was suggested that the event would also lay to rest--one way or another--the rumors that Apple is ending its exclusive deal with AT&T. Unfortunately, those rumors were neither confirmed nor denied and no one knows for sure just what's going to happen.

The Background

The iPhone has had an exclusive deal with AT&T since the beginning. If you purchased an iPhone, you had to purchase the data plan from AT&T if you wanted to use the iPhone to its potential. Users have complained of arbitrarily lost calls, high overage costs, and limited signal availability in some parts of the country (including major cities). Last week, rumors started floating around that Apple may be ready to end its exclusivity with AT&T--something users have been begging for. Ending the AT&T exclusivity deal isn't such a bad idea, not only for the sanity of users and the Justice Department (which has concerns over the exclusivity policy), but for AT&T as well. As Barb Dybwad of Mashable points out, "It even makes sense for AT&T, who in some ways are arguably shouldering an excessive burden by being the sole carrier of the data-intensive device. Many of the customer complaints about AT&T’s service (or lack thereof) can be traced to network troubles that are primarily a result of the bandwidth-hungry Apple phone."

The Rumors

Bloomberg reported that "T-Mobile USA Inc. will get the phone this summer, followed by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. in the fall, and Clearwire Corp. in 2011". And Shawn Oliver of HotHardware reported that "we have been led to believe by an inside source that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on the same day [of Apple's big event]". When Steve Jobs took the stage on Wednesday, he confirmed that Apple is the largest global device company in the world (their earnings for last quarter were $15.6 billion dollars) and he unveiled the new iPad. What he did not do was fire AT&T. In fact, the new iPad will be powered by AT&T's 3G network. And in a quarterly earnings call on Monday, Apple's COO defended Apple's relationship with AT&T:

“First of all, AT&T is a great partner. We’ve been working with them since well before we announced the first iPhone. And I think it is important to remember they had more mobile broadband usage than any other carrier in the world. And in the vast majority of locations we think that iPhone customers are having a great experience, from the research that we have done. As you know, AT&T has acknowledged that they are having some issues in a few cities and they have very detailed plans to address these. We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them.”

The bottom line is that rumors of an end to Apple/AT&T exclusivity are still rumors. I'd like to know your opinions on this. If you currently own and iPhone, would you try out a new carrier if you had the choice? If you don't own an iPhone, would you buy one if you could choose your carrier or would you stick with what you've got? Melanie Nelson writes tips and instructions for bloggers at Blogging Basics 101. She also shares technology- and blog-related links on the BB101 Microblog at Tumblr.