Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg said his company was open to the iPhone but added that the final call on bringing the device to Verizon Wireless was really up to Apple.
Seidenberg made the comments during a Q&A immediately following a speech before the Council on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Seidenberg was on hand to discuss all things related to the FCC’s National Broadband plan and the commission’s push toward net neutrality. The discussion afterwards turned to the likes of Apple.
When asked whether Verizon had plans to carry the iPhone, Seidenberg sounded more comfortable with the idea than he has in the past. “We’re open to doing that. It’s [Apple’s] shot. It’s their call. We want to carry everybody’s device,” he said in a video posted on the CFR’s Web site.
Seidenberg cited a recent report by The Wall Street Journal that said Apple is looking into an iPhone for Verizon. “All I can say is that we’ve expressed to Apple that we have an interest,” he said, but added that Apple is a company that “operates on their own frequency.”
Siedenberg also explained the difference between Verizon’s CDMA network and AT&T’s GSM network. He said that as both carriers move toward a common 4G standard in LTE, the logistics of an iPhone for Verizon become less complicated.
But it’s not just the iPhone that Seidenberg mentioned. He went on to say that Verizon has picked up a couple of iPads to try. He said that Apple’s latest creation, which will get its 3G connectivity through AT&T, will drive traffic because it is without a hard drive and will be heavily dependent on cloud-based storage and content.