Before analyzing any further in this rumor that seems to be resurrected every year, when a new iPhone is in town, you must first analyze the work of the good people from At&t network, which didn't do such a great job on representing the iPhone. Because of them, many people decided to switch carriers or even switch phones. From the release of the first iPhone, Apple closed a deal with the well-known United States carrier At&t, to make them the iPhone's carrier.
Even tough everybody was expecting something big from this partnership, At&t managed to ruin it with their lack of performance. The number of reclamations regarding At&t problems (used with the iPhone) that have been registered is by the order of thousands, as their network presented some major problems when combined with Apple's miracle-phone. One of those problems is the fact that when in different parts of the country, even the well-populated ones, the carrier seems to lose it, so you will often find yourself with no signal in places like the middle of Chicago. It seems however that Apple had enough of their incapacity to work with the iPhone, as they closed a deal with another famous carrier, T-Mobile, starting with the iPhone 4.
The rumors of Apple finally working with Verizon were once again resurrected when The Wall Street Journal published a report, which said that Apple is working at a CDMA-ready iPhone model, which once finished, will be sent directly to Verizon. Even tough many are tempted to believe this rumor, they must know that you cannot expect to much of a rumor that has no backup whatsoever. Another element you should take into consideration before taking this rumor as "definetely true" is that rumors and stories about a possible Apple-Verizon collaboration date back from 2008, when they first appear.
Reacting to the collaboration rumors from last spring, the CEO from Verizon told reporters that Apple wouldn't likely want to bring their iPhone to the company, because Verizon's 4G network was not complete, and the CDMA technology they use was too dated and limited for the expectations that Apple had. However, there is always someone there to benefit from rumors like this one, as Apple and Verizon both showed an impressive stock raise and finance situation, but in the same time, companies like At&t, Research in Motion, or Palm have all taken a hit.