No, it could be Apples own background process. And the apps only add download wishes to some kind of task scheduler. That way you don't have own background processes for every app and Apple can keep control about good times to run those background downloads.
But don't forget AT&T pays Apple a subsidy to bring people to their service. Something like $400 I read somewhere so then Apple makes that much more off of phones. Edit: Sorry didn't read the second page before posting this!
That's the way it works in the Mac since Leopard. Apple introduced a system-wide-service for subscription and download of RSS feeds. Of course, the OS does this in the background. You only fetch the articles from this service, not from the net. Apple could add such a feature to the iPhone. Apple has to introduce such services like location update which notify apps or app daemons or song changes. With this service devs could create apps like Mobile Scrobbler for last.fm or show you the todos for the current location. There is no background task of 3rd party devs needed for such functionality. Only Apple has to do some work.
