Hello Verizon... Free the Prisoners

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I don’t have an iPhone. But I want one. Badly…

My colleagues all live digital lives powered by iPhones. I look on in ergonomic envy.

I live in a house full of Macs. I’m writing on a Mac right now. It’s as elegant and productive as a well used, but well sharpened carpenter’s tool. Yet, every day I sync my thoroughly un-lovable Blackberry Storm to my MacBook and scramble a couple of addresses. Why?

I’m a prisoner of Verizon.

To spend any time in northern New England with a cell phone is to be owned, body and soul, by Verizon’s wireless coverage. They not only have the best rural cell coverage, there is no close second. They have worked like beavers to point a cell tower at every hollow in southwest New Hampshire. They aren’t perfect, but they’re damn good at this technological equivalent of boots on the ground.

What they are not good at, obviously, is dealing with Apple.

AT&T leveled a sucker punch at their rival carriers when they signed up exclusive rights to the iPhone. They have ridden the Apple mystique to serious market share. Share that is otherwise, undeserved. If you travel anywhere much outside the suburbs in New England, your iPhone will feel sleek in your hand, but you will be talking to yourself.

The opportunity here is enormous. Someone, please, sell Verizon a better smart-phone.