In case you haven’t heard by now Verizon Wireless has decided to open up their network to outside mobile handsets, devices, and applications that meet a set of minimum technical standards. Essentially any device manufacturer that meets Verizon’s requirements can create mobile phones, PDAs, gadgets for your car, gaming platforms, etc., that will run on arguably the best network in the nation that historically has been the most proprietary of the big four wireless carriers.

From a BlackBerry standpoint, I imagine that we will start seeing devices with all the features enabled which is enough to get me excited about this announcement. What, however, does this mean on a broader scale?

Is Verizon starting to see signs of times to come? Wireless carriers here in the United States largely control what devices consumers use or don’t use on their networks. Verizon undoubtedly is the king of this practice. Maybe they realize that their competitors networks are improving and eventually “The Network” will become “The Commodity”.