iPhone, Android, And 4G: Will People Carry Two Phones?

Verizon Wireless will begin to market the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone next year, if media reports are correct. The large cellular provider will also launch a super-fast 4G LTE wireless network in 38 cities. It will compete with a Wimax 4G network being built by Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S) and Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR).

The 4G network and iPhone availability from Verizon Wireless are not the only choices that consumers and business buyers of smartphones need to take into account. The new Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android operating system is considered by many wireless customers to be superior to Apple’s mobile operating system as well as the one built for the Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry.

To put the matter simply, handsets and wireless networks are not tethered together any more. Customers may want the features of one smartphone and those from another cellular service.

The cellphone market in the US is saturated. Verizon Wireless, AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint-Nextel, and T-Mobile have, by most measures, about 280 million subscribers in an America where the population is 315 million. That leaves little for the phone companies other than to steal customers from one another, which tends to lead to discounts. The wireless providers have begun to add charges for data transfers, but it is far from certain that consumers will accept those charges.

The tipping point may have come when consumers will carry two phones–one for their preferred network access and another for preferred features. That may seem extreme, but some people already carry one handset for business use–often a BlackBerry–and another for personal use. It is very little different from a household with a small TV in the bedroom and a large one in the living room–one which has full 500 channel cable service and another with less robust features.

American consumers already have a purse or briefcase or satchel filled with multimedia players, wireless phones, tablet PCs, netbooks, and laptops. A “two-phone” culture is not really radical. It is the dream of cellphone and wireless service providers that all Americans have two or three handsets, and that day may not be far off.

Douglas A. McIntyre