[ben1040]

I am on Verizon and will not switch away (grandfathered into unlimited data, and AT&T coverage at my house is the pits).

Back in November I wanted to get an iPhone 4S. I was not upgrade eligible, so I'd have to pay full retail price.

If you pay full retail for an AT&T iPhone, the phone is automatically fully unlocked (this practice seemed to have quietly began around when the 4S was launched). You're basically buying the unlocked model even if you didn't ask for it. However, there was nothing indicating that this was the case if you bought it for Verizon and paid full retail.

I only keep my phones for a year or so and then sell them on. Not having the phone fully unlocked hurts the resale value. A phone that will only do EVDO a year from now just isn't worth as much as a phone that could do HSPA+.

[yuhong]

I don't think the Verizon iPhone 4 has support for GSM at all.

[runjake]

The 4 doesn't, but we're talking about the 4S, which does.