You have to remember what the carriers were like in 2006/2007 timeframe. Cingular/AT&T was the open carrier at the time. You would use any GSM phone. More im

You have to remember what the carriers were like in 2006/2007 timeframe. Cingular/AT&T was the open carrier at the time. You would use any GSM phone. More importantly, they allowed you to use any feature on your phone. Conceding to Apple control of the apps on your phone was a very radical idea at the time. Typically carriers dictated what application would be on the phone. On Verizon, you had to use their phones (there was some lipservice around this time about allowing any fully compatible phone on its network). In addition, included features such as bluetooth PC syncing, which had zero impact on the network, was disabled on my Nokia candybar. It was simply too much of a leap for Verizon to allow a phone as open as the iPhone (2007 terms, remember) on its network.