After years of whispering, back room deals and the pleading of countless Apple aficionados who refused to be yoked by an AT&T contract, Apple is rolling the iPhone out to a second American provider. As has been speculated for months, the Verizon iPhone is CDMA network compatible, as opposed to the GSM goodness that much of the rest of the world enjoys. Coming from Canada, a country that saw the iPhone finally make it on to all three of our major national telecoms in late last winter, I understand why everyone down south is so excited, as it wasn’t so long ago that we were all wigging out up here about being about to get our meathooks on an iPhone too. 

That said, reading the coverage of this morning’s Verizon event and the CDMA iPhone 4’s February launch, it wasn’t so much the differences between the AT&T and Verizon handsets that struck me, but the way in which the iPhone’s switch from being a network-exclusive handset to an device offered by multiple carriers reflects the subtle differences between our two countries.

Back in 2008, Rogers Communications -- one of Canada’s three national telecoms -- announced that they’d secured the exclusive Canadian rights to offer the iPhone to Canadians. 7.4 million of us -- Roger’s subscriber base at that time -- squealed with delight. But Canadians who had cellular contracts with Canada’s other national telecom providers? Not so much. At the time, the other guys, Bell and Telus, had CDMA networks. With that being the case, Rogers was the only game in town. Despite Rogers’ legendarily hostile customer service and high monthly fees, their offering the iPhone led to a one year customer increase for the company of 7%, and this in the middle of a massive recession. Unwilling to watch Rogers glut themselves on iPhone sales and service for any longer than necessary, Bell and Telus teamed up to build and launch their own national GSM network, providing enough 3G coverage across Canada to let the two telecoms go toe-to-toe with Rogers. By October of 2009, the new GSM network was ready, timed seemingly to coincide with end of Roger’s exclusivity deal with Apple. Now, we are swamped by a sea of iPhones.

Negotiation. Teamwork and a whole lot of patience. That’s how we roll up here. As we saw this morning, Americans do things just a little differently. When the iPhone first made the scene back in 2007, it was an AT&T exclusive. Almost immediately after the smartphone made its way into the hands of consumers, the complaints began. AT&T’s network couldn't handle the additional data load caused by the phone. They were wicked slow, had insane billing practices and offered, in many areas, spotty cellular coverage. As a result, many users looked to grey market geeks for carrier unlocks so that they could transport the phone to an alternate GSM carrier.

Most users, however, who loved the iPhone’s form factor and functionality, soldiered on and longed for the day when AT&T’s death grip on the iPhone would end.  That day was, well, today. Verizon, long rumored to be would be the next American carrier to offer the iPhone, didn’t build a new GSM network in order to meet the iPhone’s needs. They didn’t even wait for AT&T’s exclusive hold on the hardware to go slack. Instead, Verizon worked secretly with Apple to develop an iPhone that would work on their existing network, leading to an iPhone that while similar in many ways to the one offered by AT&T was under the hood entirely different.

Canada's roll-out of iPhone hardware across national networks took a lot of patience from its patrons. Bell and Telus worked together, planned out and built the network they needed to wrest away the control of the iPhone from Rogers. Americans, unique as you are, came to conqueror AT&T’s hold on the iPhone 4 in a manner that fits the origins of your country to a tee.  Not willing to to wait for Apple patiently for Apple and AT&T's exclusive GSM relationship to come to an end, Verizon pushed for an iPhone of their own and won it, through hard-won innovation, determination and a whole bunch of moxie.

Just saying.

Follow this article's author, Seamus Bellamy on Twitter