The “openness” PR battle between Verizon and AT&T is absurd. Some thoughts:

Verizon’s plans for being “open” is little more than marketing copy. According to their plan, all devices that ride on the Verizon network need to be pre-approved. There is nothing open about that.

AT&T claims to be “more open” than Verizon, yet nothing about the capabilities of their network is changing. At best, they’ll call off the customer service pit bulls that reject you when you ask them to enable your unlocked GSM phone to access their network.

I’ll accept a wireless provider’s claim of “openness” when I see a plan that allows me to put the Bug Labs’ Bug on their network without pre-approval. I’ll pay for unlimited wireless data access (none of this pay-per-usage crap that I haven’t put up with from an ISP since AOL 3.0). Then, my phone will be Skype, my SMS will be my IM client of choice, and I’ll ditch my land-based ISP (TimeWarner Cable).

Also, I don’t expect this to be cheap. I would pay dearly for this kind of freedom. Regardless, that will be my standard for open: when my wireless provider is a dumb pipe.