Verizon Wireless, the country's second-largest cell-phone service provider, today detailed plans to open up its network by the end of 2008, allowing subscribers to use applications and wireless devices not sold by the company.

The announcement is a stunning about-face for Verizon Wireless, which had previously been fiercely protective of its network. The change is evidence that major wireless providers are beginning to heed rising calls for greater consumer choice in the cell-phone market.
 
It is also a defensive play aimed squarely at Google's coming Android open-source cell-phone platform, which was announced just weeks ago.

Google welcomed the move.

"We think this is a great step forward,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google.  “As the Internet has demonstrated, open models create better services for consumers and stronger businesses for providers. We are excited to work with Verizon and other industry leaders to achieve this vision."

Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and C.E.O., said, "This is a transformation point in the 20-year history of mass-market wireless devices—one which we believe will set the table for the next level of innovation and growth."

"Verizon Wireless is not changing our successful retail model," McAdam noted, "but rather adding an additional retail option for customers looking for a different wireless experience."

Verizon Wireless says that it will soon provide technical specifications to developers interested in designing products to be used on its network. Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network, and any application a customer chooses will be allowed on those devices, the company said.

In a statement, Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group of Britain, said that it was responding "to a small but growing number of customers who want another choice without full service."

Many tech watchers were ecstatic over the news. Writing on his GigaOM.com blog, Om Malik compared Verizon's announcement to Mikhail Gorbachev responding to Ronald Reagan's call to tear down the Berlin Wall.

But some consumer groups reacted warily. Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, which has been lobbying for more consumer choice in the wireless market, said she is "cautiously optimistic" that Verizon's move "will lead to a more open network in the wireless industry at large."

"The Federal Communications Commission, in a rule being challenged by the cellular industry's trade association, endorsed that type of market opening for all carriers in the spectrum auction due to take place next year," Sohn said.

Indeed, Verizon's action arrives against the backdrop of a holy war over the F.C.C.'s 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction, which is set for early 2008. The federal government hopes to raise at least $15 billion by selling the spectrum, which is becoming available as television stations make the transition to digital broadcasting on other frequencies.

Google said that it plans to bid at least $4.6 billion on the wireless spectrum. The search giant has been vigorously lobbying the F.C.C. to include four rules adopted by a consortium of consumer-rights groups. In the end, though, the F.C.C. adopted only two of them—"open applications" and "open devices"—which would effectively allow consumers to mix and match cell-phone hardware and software.

Verizon's announcement stunned many in the telecommunications industry because just two months ago the company filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to overturn the F.C.C.'s open-access provisions, saying that they were unconstitutional and that the commission had overstepped its authority.

Still, change will come slowly. Sohn, of Public Knowledge, noted that other major wireless providers—including the biggest, AT&T, which has an exclusive deal to market Apple's iPhone—have not yet decided to open up their networks.

"If other carriers don't follow the same model, then consumers will still find their phones tied to a specific technology or wireless company," Sohn said. "Until they do, an iPhone will still be useless on any network but AT&T's. In order for an open network to become a reality, all carriers will have to participate."

Although Verizon users will have more flexibility under the plan, they still won't be able to use the iPhone because unlike AT&T, which supports G.S.M. or Global System for Mobile communications, Verizon supports C.D.M.A. or Code Division Multiple Access devices.

"Verizon Wireless has finally realized they can no longer continue to frustrate consumer choice over the type of device and application used on their network, taking the first step in acknowledging the benefits of open networks for consumers," said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition. "While the details are still yet to be seen, we hope that when this change is implemented, it will be an important development and will increase pressure on the company's wireless competitors to follow suit."