AT&T is waking up to the fact that it has lost its exclusive to the iPhone. Now the company is starting to try to prevent massive customer departures when the Verizon iPhone goes on sale this month. The first try directly aimed at current AT&T customers was the e-mail I received today titled: Feel free to make a call while reading this email.
It’s pretty obvious what they are talking about in the e-mail. AT&T is bringing up the issue about how their network supports both data and voice simultaneously on their version of the iPhone. You cannot do that on the forthcoming Verizon iPhone, because their CDMA network just doesn’t support simultaneous voice and data. All due to limitations in the CDMA standard implemented by Verizon.
The e-mail also included a 25% off coupon for any mobile accessory at your local AT&T store, but that didn’t excite me all that much. I’m more interested in seeing what fallout there will be for AT&T customers as the company struggles to retain customers.
Rest assured you’ll probably see AT&T scramble to remind people about this CDMA limitation again and again prior to the launch of the iPhone 4 to current Verizon customers this Thursday and before its release to the masses (including current AT&T customers) next week.
