AT&T may maintain exclusivity on the Apple iPhone until 2011

AppleInsider is reporting that talks between Apple and AT & T are in the works for AT & T to maintain its exclusivity on the iPhone up to 2011. Although AT & T is subsidizing the iPhone to probably the tune of $1.3 billion to date, the estimated 4 million users paying $60 per month coming into 2009 will be producing another quarter of a billion dollars in subscription income. This is above what AT&T is getting from all those voice calls over the free voice call minutes from the millions of iPhone users.

If the current growth of US iPhone users continue to increase AT & T will continue to rake in those communication dollars going into 2010 when the US carriers will start implementing network upgrades that will use the LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology. I’m pretting excited with the technology since it’s a truly IP connected phone that people will be using when that happens.