Rumor: iPhone finally heading to Verizon this year

UPDATE: Turns out this is a rumor dating back to September. The original post in question had been misdated. Sigh.

At least once a week, I receive a very curious, and very specific, question via email: When will the Apple iPhone be available on Verizon?

Apple of course is famous in its tight-lippedness about such matters, and it's long been known that the iPhone is an AT&T exclusive in the U.S. And while unlocked versions will run on T-Mobile, the iPhone's current design -- as a GSM device -- makes it incompatible with the CDMA-based Sprint and Verizon networks. No credible rumor has turned up plans for a CDMA iPhone, either.

Until now.

Again, nothing official, but speculation is running wild that Apple is finally fed up with AT&T's coverage issues and relative lack of subscribers (even the humble Treo is available from three of the carriers), so Apple will finally be heading to Verizon, possibly by the end of the year. "Deep throats" within Apple have told at least one reporter that a Verizon announcement will be coming soon.

The major problem with the Verizon rumor is that AT&T has an avowed five-year exclusive deal on the iPhone, and that deal is not even into its third year. But it's a deal that has slowly changed over time: AT&T and Apple Stores used to be the only places you could even buy an iPhone, but now they're widely available at Best Buy and even Wal-Mart. So just how "exclusive" is the deal, and is Apple quietly renegotiating it behind the scenes? Five years is an eternity in the technology world, and I wonder if, considering the economy, AT&T might actually now be happy to get a nice lump sum payout from Apple in exchange for giving up control over the U.S. market. With iPhone sales slowing in recent months, the promise of easy cash looks more and more tantalizing... and this rumor more and more likely to be true.

Consumers, of course, are rejoicing at the prospect: Verizon is by no means perfect, but many feel it has considerably better coverage than AT&T, and dropped calls remain a frequent iPhone user complaint. Holdouts: Would you jump to the iPhone if Verizon had the handset?

And to answer a question that I know I'll get repeatedly after this post goes live: No, you won't be able to upgrade an AT&T iPhone to use it on the Verizon network.