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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kelly G. who wrote (133856)	5/18/2012 4:25:13 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213177

I posted a while back about how Apple could essentially become there own telecom if they wanted to. I believe Apple has the upper hand here. If the telecoms don't play nice, they don't get the iPhone. It reminds me of the nuclear balance; M.A.D. If both V and T decided to raise the price of the iP5 to, say, $399, Apple could go to one or the other and day "you want an exclusive? Lower your price back to $199". The other carrier would lose lots and lots of subs and might buckle. I don't think there is any chance Apple would build their own network. It would take, what, 5 years before they got decent national coverage? In the meantime the existing carriers would do everything they could to kill the iPhone. They could buy Sprint? But do they want to hobbled by a utility that might get displaced by new tech? I doubt it. Another possibility is that Apple is already buckling to the pressure. Note the reduced prices across the large retailers. Something is going on there. I don't think it would happen under Jobs, but Cook is an unknown. All speculation except that the carriers are getting uppity and are probably sick of hearing (and their shareholders hearing) the pundits say "Apple is sucking all of the profits out of the industry", which is partially true. I expect we'll know more when the iP5 details come out. Or at least we'll have some new questions <g>.