Apple recently went to bat for AT&T, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook defending AT&T repeatedly against complaints of poor 3G network performance and in the process ignoring a huge chunk of the year 2009. "iPhone customers are having a great experience from the research we've done," stated Cook on a recent conference call. "We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them," he said of AT&T's 3G improvement promises.

It seemed at the time that Cook was just praising AT&T to justify Apple's decision to make AT&T the exclusive distribution partner for the iPad. But at least one stock analyst believes Apple is setting the stage for an extension of their exclusive iPhone arrangement with AT&T, contrary to previous beliefs. According to a research note by Jonathan Chaplin of Credit Suisse, AT&T and Apple's partnership may very well may be extended into 2011:Of course most analysts predicted that Apple, concerned with the damage poor network performance could have on the shiny Apple brand, would likely ditch AT&T and offer the phone to other carriers. But with the iPhone giving AT&T the lowest churn (customer defection) rate in the wireless industry, never underestimate the influence of a pile of AT&T money dumped squarely in Apple's lap. Should the agreement be extended, you can expect a lot of complaining from iPhone users in congested AT&T markets -- especially if AT&T doesn't come through with the improvements they've been touting for several months.