Verizon promises to "openly" connect places to people to devices and in any of these combinations. The carrier also claims 65.7 million wireless subscribers (out of a total of 255.4 million in the U.S.) and that 55 per cent of its retail customers actually carry broadband-enabled devices.

But is Verizon really changing? At the SOFCON conference, Verizon executive director of Internet and Tech Policy, Paul Brigner, reading out of a scripted presentation (I guess some things NEVER change), gave a glimpse of the telco operator's next generation wireless plan.

And first, to illustrate that Verizon is really "changing with the marketplace", Brigner reminded us how much Verizon is now banking on "data" versus voice for its future.

"It took 7 years to get 10 billion text messages transfered on our network on a single month. But it only took 7 more months after that to hit 20 billion messages in a single month. So we're seeing a hockey stick effect here and the data usage is really growing to the roof. Our data revenues currently comprise 20% of our revenue", said Brigner.

Last December, Verizon chose the LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology for its upcoming 4G network it plans to build on the 700MHz C Block spectrum recently won at the FCC auction. Trials are currently under way with British "minority owner" Vodaphone. Next year, Verizon expects to choose its suppliers and plan to commercially launch its 4G network in 2010.