As a former Verizon customer I have long held the view that they.. well, suck. Their service was not reliable where I live, their phone selection was very limited, the phones they did have were obviously not tested well, they don’t use SIM cards and their customer service is horrendous at best.

Now I doubt that any of the above has changed so I have no plans to ever go back to them, but they did make a very important announcement today. Sometime next year you should be able to take most phones into a Verizon store and walk out with their service.  In addition you can install non-Verizon applications on those or any other Verizon phones.  Other carriers have already allowed similar actions, but not to the degree that Verizon is pledging to.

Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon Wireless plans to have this new choice available to customers throughout the country by the end of 2008. In early 2008, the company will publish the technical standards the development community will need to design products to interface with the Verizon Wireless network. Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network.

Maybe they figured it was easier to allow other phones than to actually get quality, tested phones of their own?

While most Verizon Wireless customers prefer the convenience of full service, the company is listening through today’s announcement to a small but growing number of customers who want another choice without full service.

Small but growing? That “small” group is anyone with common sense who wants to control what phone they use and wants to be able to easily switch without the hassle of waiting in line for an hour at the store and paying some ridiculous activation fee. Anyone who has ever been with AT&T, T-mobile or any SIM based carrier would never dream of going to Verizon and that is NOT a small group.

I don’t expect this to make Verizon worth switching to by any means, but hopefully it will force other carriers to move even closer towards the type of open, non-monopolistic business practices that the rest of the world is already used to.