Verizon iPhone? Not yet, Verizon CEO says.

Verizon iPhone rumors get the kibosh from Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg.

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Newscom
Verizon iPhone? Well, we'd build it if we could, the Verizon CEO said this week.

Verizon iPhone gossip has been floating around for months now, but Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says every one of those rumors are false – no Verizon iPhone is immediately forthcoming. According to Seidenberg, who delivered the remarks at a Goldman Sachs investors conference in NYC, Apple has not yet made an iPhone that would work with Verizon's CDMA network.

Seidenberg did say that he hoped Apple would consider letting Verizon offer a 4G iPhone. "We would love to carry [the iPhone] when we get there, but we have to earn it," Seidenberg said at the conference, the tech site Ars Technica reports. "I think 4G will accelerate the process, and any other decisions Apple makes would be fine with us. Hopefully, at some point Apple will get with the program."

Seidenberg's comments seem to directly conflict with a TechCrunch report published this summer, which forecasted the January launch of a CDMA-powered Verizon iPhone.

"Sources with knowledge of this entire situation have assured me that Apple has submitted orders for millions of units of Qualcomm CDMA chipsets for a Verizon iPhone run due in December," wrote Steve Cheney of TechCrunch. "This production run would likely be for a January launch, and I’d bet the phone is nearly 100 percent consistent with the current iPhone 4 (with a fixed internal insulator on the antenna)."

In related news, Credit Suisse has released a report showing that 23 percent of iPhone users would abandon AT&T for Verizon. Interestingly, Credit Suisse says that only 3 percent of consumers would cancel their contract with AT&T – which currently has exclusive rights to the iPhone – and sign up directly with Verizon. The vast majority of iPhone users would prefer to wait until their contract had expired.

So what do you make of all this Verizon iPhone gossip? Is Seidenberg fibbing? Does TechCrunch have it wrong? Drop us a line in the comments section.

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