Disruptive Telephony

In the "P.S." to my recent post about the iPhone, I mentioned that Cingular doesn't provide service to Vermont, and so I'll not have the opportunity to try out an iPhone anytime soon.  In fact, it turns out that Cingular/AT&T won't be available here at least through 2009.  On the front page of yesterday's Burlington Free Press there was an article aptly titled "In Vermont, Apple's iPhone is The i(can't)Phone".  As Ken has ranted, this is what comes of having the product locked into an exclusive agreement with a single provider.

It also turns out that Vermont is of course not alone.  Pretty much any state with rural areas is out of luck:

That means the iPhone will be unavailable in, among other locations, all or large portions of Alaska, Colorado, the Dakotas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, upstate New York, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

As you'll note, the article goes on to point the irony of the January 9th announcement by Steve Jobs when Vermont Governor Douglas had just stated in his inaugural address on January 4th that his administration will be committed to making Vermont the first "e-state".  As you'll further note, the Governor was holding up a Blackberry.

And yes, if I were so-inclined, I could probably do what the owner of the local Apple reseller said he is going to do, which is drive down to Lebanon, N.H. to get one (about an hour away for him)... but I'm not that interested.  :-)