Apple will reportedly start selling unlocked iPhones in the U.S. this Wednesday, giving consumers the illusion of carrier freedom.

Apple will reportedly start selling unlocked iPhones in the U.S. this Wednesday, giving consumers the illusion of carrier freedom.

On Sunday, Chronic Wire, a well-known iPhone modder, tweeted, "Unlocked iPhones headed to Apple Stores for Wednesday: MC603 (16GB, Black) MC604 (16GB, White) MC605 (32GB, Black) MC606 (32GB, White)."

The greatest benefit of an unlocked iPhone, as many of Apple's foreign consumers will attest, is the freedom to choose any carrier. But how would one device work in a country divided by GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile) and CDMA (Verizon, Sprint)?

One clue may be found in an old , which revealed that Apple used a Qualcomm MDM6600 baseband processor inside. This theoretically supports both GSM and CDMA networks; Apple simply turned off GSM access for the Verizon iPhone.

The idea of selling locked iPhones made more sense when AT&T was an exclusive iPhone supplier and carrier freedom was irrelevant. But now that Verizon is selling the iPhone, and Sprint and T-Mobile are rumored to start sell them this year, Apple doesn't need to keep its phones locked.

It would, however, require quite a change in U.S. mobile consumer habits. Unlocked phones are sold at full retail value rather than at a carrier-subsidized rate, with contract. Thus, an unlocked iPhone 4 would start at $599 for a 16GB version, instead of $199 with a two-year contract.

Electronista had an interesting conspiracy theory: that this is all AT&T's idea. AT&T could be pushing Apple to sell unlocked iPhones to that its proposed merger with T-Mobile wouldn't give AT&T an edge over exclusive phones, as rival Sprint has protested.