This is all over the internet: rumors that Apple will stick by AT&T as the exclusive carrier until at least 2011.
There's a good case to be made for Apple waiting to dump AT&T, especially with the iPad coming out. Apple's selling iPhone's like crazy, making money like crazy, and will have its hands full gearing up to meet iPad demand. No particular reason to rock the boat now. Except iPhone customers hate AT&T, but so far, they don't really blame Apple.
For AT&T, this is good news for continued high profits. But there's danger here too, unless AT&T finally get's it's act together and fixes it's service problems. iPhone customers are really pissed off, and increasingly becoming active about their unhappiness with the status quo. The danger for AT&T is that they get the ear of regulators and this becomes a national consumer issue, which it should be. AT&T has other issues it would rather have government focus on then why it has a monopoly on the iPhone and can't service it.
It won't hurt Apple if the government steps in and forces it to dump it's exclusive rights deal, or come up with a new national broadband policy that allows customers to freely move devices between carriers (and forces carriers to adopt a universal standard). It AT&T doesn't want regulators to step in, it needs to take advantage of this opportunity to really improve service.
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