Verizon Hangs Up on iPhone

On Monday, Verizon rose 16 cents to $37.99, AT&T added 34 cents to $36.74 and Apple rose 52 cents to $85.90.

Exclusive deals on phones are hardly unknown -- take Verizon's deal with Motorola MOT on the Q email phone. Most phone companies subsidize a portion of the cost of a new user's phone to win a one or two-year contract. Still, analysts say never before has a phone maker demanded a revenue-sharing deal from a telco.

The news comes as Verizon posts another blowout quarter in its wireless division, jointly owned with U.K. telco Vodafone VOD. For the fourth quarter, Verizon added 2.1 million conventional retail customers. That's more than double the 861,000 net new postpaid users AT&T's wireless unit gained in the same period.

With Sprint S sputtering and spitting out customers and AT&T performing wanly, Verizon has been able to gain ground over the past year with a higher-paying, more loyal customer base.

But winning streaks don't last forever. Now, some industry observers and investors have grown concerned that Verizon could face more of a challenge in wireless in the second half of the year.

Assuming a total collapse isn't in the works, Sprint could one day regain its footing and stop its massive customer defections, which seem to have helped fuel Verizon's growth. Even more troubling, perhaps, is the expected impact of iPhone sales on both Verizon's numbers and AT&T's.