You think there’s nothing more to say about Verizon cell phones? Then think again, because now Apple’s in da house and it’s threatening to change the industry in more ways than you can shake your wallet at!

No, this isn’t an advertisement – and it isn’t an advertorial, either – but one observer’s take on industry goings-on, an observer who isn’t even much of a cell phone consumer, really. It isn’t that I have some Verizon cell phones myself, for example. Indeed, I haven’t a cellular telephone of my own. I only use that belonging to my live-in girlfriend. (That’s how I get the word out to the world that I’m still alive!)

But I used to be really big on hi-tech, and it’s amusing for me to casually regard – and disregard – all the developments in cellular communications since the 1990s, when I personally first became aware of such devices. At the time, things were radically different – and the same as ever in other respects. Know that old French saying? “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

So, changes: the stock of Verizon cell phones is greater than ever, and individual makes and models offer all kinds of cool handy features like never before. But what’s remained the same are subscription plans that try to tie you down with all sorts of penalties for leaving early – and these plans want at least a year from you, if not more, still.

That’s where the iPhone figures into all this. There’s the potential for it to really rock the industry. Whereas it was once offered exclusively for use over AT&T’s network, it’s now come to roost just as comfortably across Verizon’s own nationwide network.

Namely, greater competition.

Which ought to lead to better terms and conditions.

Oftentimes. But for now, things look about the same as ever. Verizon or AT&T, it’s about the same right now in terms of those terms and conditions. The iPhone isn’t available, for example, on a prepaid basis; only with a old-fashioned years-long contract plan.

So how’s that “changing the catalog in more ways than one?”

Well, again, there’s the theory, and then there’s practice. For the time being, even though product cycles are measured in months if not weeks in the industry, other factors have conspired to maintain the way carriers do business such that consumers aren’t seeing any differences. But that can still change, as well it should – and there are those who claim that it’s actually begun to already.