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Verizon finally introduces iPhone to areas with no AT&T coverage

by Steven Sande Feb 11th 2011 at 12:30PM

Up until yesterday, mobile phone customers in vast parts of Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska had no way to get an iPhone. Why? There simply wasn't any AT&T coverage in these areas, so the customers -- who were mostly on Verizon -- had no access to the popular smartphone.

The addition of Verizon as a U.S. carrier opened up doors for a lot of potential iPhone owners, and it appears that many formerly iPhone-less Verizon customers are now embracing the Apple mobile phone. According to an AP news report carried in the Huffington Post, many Verizon stores opened early yesterday in flyover country and were greeted by enthusiastic groups of buyers. While crowds weren't huge -- most Verizon store managers chalked that up to the freezing temperatures in most of this part of the country -- the stores reported brisk sales of the iPhone 4 during the day and many expected to run out of stock by the weekend.

The AP report cited a 20 year-old woman in Fargo, North Dakota who said her Android-based Verizon phone had been the "next best thing in Fargo." The young woman blew her paycheck on the iPhone and said that she had been waiting "so long" for the iPhone to actually arrive in frigid Fargo. Welcome to the world of iPhone, Fargo!



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Up until yesterday, mobile phone customers in vast parts of Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska had no way to get an...
 

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Dan Pritchard

This article fails to point out that in any area where Verizon and Alltel both had native coverage (which includes most of these Great Plains states), Alltel's licenses had to be divested as a condition of the acquisition (The FCC wouldn't allow one carrier to hold 2 sets of licenses in the same area). Those licenses, and the associated towers and equipment, were sold to AT&T. My friend has a North Dakota Alltel account and they are all being given free comparable GSM phones or a subsidized upgrade if they choose, as soon as AT&T finishes installing GSM equipment on the old Alltel CDMA towers. Many Alltel subscribers, such as my friend, are getting AT&T iPhones, and you can bet that the newly built network is going to be pretty sweet for them.

February 13 2011 at 2:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jjllc2

Has anyone overlaid a Verizon coverage map over an ATT coverage to see where in the US you can NOT get coverage?

February 12 2011 at 11:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tom

Fargoans have had the iPhone since 2007. Proof: http://fargoing.blogspot.com/2007/07/first-kid-on-my-block.html

February 11 2011 at 4:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Tom's comment
reader1234

blew her entire paycheck on an iphone??? i hope she isn't receiving and government help. but she probably is.

February 11 2011 at 2:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to reader1234's comment
Jägs

Funny, I'm from SD and have had an iPhone since 2007. Roaming on LongLines most of the time, but AT&T doesn't seem to care unless I go over 100MB of data per month, which is hard to do without 3G.

Supposedly, since AT&T bought out Alltel, we'll be getting that too.

February 11 2011 at 2:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gillan

5 stars for you.

:D

February 11 2011 at 2:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
boriscleto

I'm sure all those California hippies who retired to the Bitterroot Valley are happy.

February 11 2011 at 1:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
wetstuff

Excuse my laugh... I had to get ATT because Verizon does not have decent cel coverage in my area - where they have been the legacy carrier forever. I put a repeater on my roof to create a in-house wifi and run both an iPad and i4 off ATT. Verizon never bothered to provide DSL...

I am happy Fargo got the iPhone, Lord knows they need every small favor.

Jim/maryland

February 11 2011 at 12:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
elbruelsio

Yay Fargo!

February 11 2011 at 12:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mark

I would discourage any promotion of the Huffington post. The political waffler just sold it to AOL for an obscene amount of money. The suit was built on the backs of freelancer writers who went unpaid and mainly regurgitate news cobbled from other sources.

February 11 2011 at 12:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to mark's comment
naturlichfrisch

I think TUAW is even more likely to quote or link to Huffington Post since the AOL acquisition. TUAW is owned by AOL after all.

February 11 2011 at 1:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rego

Suit?

February 11 2011 at 5:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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