Three more regional carriers get to sell the iPhone next Friday

You can add Bluegrass Cellular, Golden State Cellular and Nex-Tech Wireless to your list of regional wireless operators that get to carry the iPhone in the United States, alongside the big three carriers (AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint).

According to the press releases out this morning, these wireless operators will offer both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S beginning next Friday, May 18, with $50 discounts.

Both handsets will require a standard two-year commitment and will be priced at $149 for the entry-level 16GB iPhone 4S model and $49 for its predecessor, the 8GB iPhone 4…

Bluegrass Cellular said their iPhone deal requires a two-year data plan, which begins at $65 a month. The 32GB and 64GB iPhone 4S models will be priced at $249 and $349, respectively. All models will be available at all Bluegrass Cellular Customer Care Centers, select Authorized Agent locations and via their pre-order page.

In addition to Bluegrass Cellular, both California-based Golden State Cellular and Kansas-based Nex-Tech Wireless announced the same price points for the iPhone 4S/4. These prices come at a cool $50 lower compared to the big three carriers, although some regional carriers do price-match their offerings.

For example, nTelos Wireless began carrying Apple’s handset last month at the same $149/$49 price points for the entry-level iPhone 4S/4 models.

Some other regional carriers also offer comparable deals.

This expansion brings the number of regional iPhone wireless operators in the United States to a total of nine.

As for the big boys, T-Mobile USA still doesn’t carry the iconic handset although this could change as the carrier just announced iPhone-compatible HSPA+ network coming later this year.

If you live in one of the areas covered by these carriers’ networks, we’d love to hear about your experience down in the comments.