Summary
1. Any kind of a strained relationship with Nokia had to do with when there were more landline executives dominating the leadership at Verizon (especially with Siemens becoming part of the company). 2. Now, it is a whole new world at the RBOC with high-level management being controlled by the wireless side. 3. Nokia’s device could allow Verizon to get a tremendous jump on LTE in the US market.
Analysis
There are indications that Nokia may retrofit an earlier product that did not provide voice but had packet functionality for data and video. Essentially, it will just have to add a cellular phone to the product, and perhaps do some minor upgrades to meet the vendor requirements.
While other vendors including LG, which has been Verizon’s primary handset provider, are undoubtedly working on LTE devices, Nokia appears to be the one way out in front now. Verizon will almost definitely want to get an exclusive contract. It is still smarting from the AT&T/Apple iPhone alliance. Actually, with such an expected jump on the rest of the US market, it will probably have a de facto monopoly anyway for a while. Verizon is planning on having a 4G network long before AT&T – and Nokia’s set could be as much as two years old before AT&T is in a position to buy anything.
In the long run, Nokia-Siemens could benefit on the wireline side as well. Because Motorola was a handset provider to Verizon, it opened the door to sales of optical access equipment to the carrier.
