[kieran]

According to this post on MacDailyNews, Piper Jaffray says that Apple receives a cut of the monthly fees from AT&T customers. A reverse revenue sharing plan.

They get $3 a month for every iPhone customer already with AT&T and $11 a month for every new iPhone customer.

That sounds like a great deal for Apple if it's true. I didn't really think about Apple getting a cut of monthly service charges.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

There's been mention of Apple getting a cut of the ongoing revenue from the ATT contract, but no one has been able to put a dollar amount on it yet. It does make sense that Apple should get more from new ATT contractees vs. current ATT contractees who bought an iPhone.

As someone on one of the Apple related boards said, if Apple sells 1 million phones in the US, ATT stands to reap a minimum of ~$120 Million over two years at the base $60/month rate. That's a ton of dough going to ATT just for selling a phone that no other US carrier can sell for a few more years.

If Verizon was courted by Apple, I cannot believe anyone did the math before telling Apple to go away.

[Wyatt]

I absolutely believe it. It's certainly not the first time AT&T has done this.

I was working for RadioShack when they started selling Cingular phones and service in 2006, and it was common knowledge throughout the company that we dropped Verizon and went to Cingular because Cingular (now AT&T, of course) would give the company a cut of the monthly bill from every customer they sign up.

[torifile]

Apple may be the only thing the AT&T has to keep people from switching providers when their contracts are up. Cell users have no loyalty to a brand (and for good reason - everybody ends up hating their provider at some point) and the iPhone may be enough to keep people from leaving AT&T if they get exclusivity on the iPhone. So Apple *should* get a cut. They're like a really good salesman who gets commission.