a storm is a brewing "VZW"

If they are, it will not be for another 3 years, at least. AT&T is supposed to have a 5 year contract with Apple. Apple did come to Verizon first with the offer, but they put Apple down. Apple rethought the idea, and it is smarter to offer it to a company that is worldwide and the same technology would work with the rest of the world's GSM networks. When the contract is up, AT&T does have first dibs on resigning. Although, Verizon's new LTE network is about to launch. Apple does not have a problem with reaching another 80+ million customers... so who knows.