It's not the knife, it's the network.

This is intolerable, I’ll sue you! Well I won’t sue you…but you’ve not heard the last of me. You know what, I LOVE that idea. I’m totally into this, big time.

Such are the wild mood swings of Verizon. Like a depraved unstable 300 pound linebacker with a switchblade it takes turns threatening everyone in the room: the government, other carriers, its customers and anyone who happens to draw its attention. However it looks like the terrible fog that has long clouded its judgment might finally be lifting.

Was it just this last September that Verizon was threatening to sue the government over open access rules to the 700 MHz spectrum auction? Wow, how time flies. Since then Verizon has pulled its law suit, and then yesterday, Verizon goes ahead and announces that they are adopting an open access policy. A skeptic might conclude that they are only converting over to open access because they realized that their hand was being forced. However, an unenthusiastic carrier wouldn’t have to allow open access until around 2011 and even then only on devices operating on the 700 MHz spectrum. Verizon announced that it would open its entire network to any device in 2008.

The nitty-gritty details won’t be announced until early next year when Verizon releases the technical standards for connecting to their network. On its face, it appears that a would-be developer only needs to meet the proper network connectivity procedures (whatever they may be). Verizon claims it won’t care who makes the device, what it’s for, or what software it runs. Devices will have to be sent to a Verizon Certification Lab which will verify that the device connects to the network correctly, but Verizon is vowing that the Certification Lab won’t be an obstacle to access. According to this article:

“One Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it.”

That sounds pretty awesome to me. I use VerizonWireless because I’ve been very happy with their coverage, but I’ve been less than impressed with their choice of devices. Does this mean that phones with sim cards might finally come to Verizon? I certainly hope so. I’ve never understood why Verizon makes it such a pain to migrate phone numbers and contact information from one device to another. (I’m sure it has nothing to do with the $25 charge to do it for you).

This also opens the way for devices that sport Google’s new Android platform to come to Verizon. Actually this opens the way for devices that aren’t even phones but still need wireless connectivity to come to Verizon….and who knows what cool things those gadgets will do! (Even though I don’t know what they are I still feel a powerful desire to possess them).

It’s a nice change of pace to actually be able to praise my wireless carrier for doing something that seems to serve my best interest. Perhaps Verizon will respond well to the positive attention and keep up the good work.