Verizon is preparing to announce that it will be adding the iPhone to its lineup, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. The formal announcement is expected to come on Tuesday, January 11th.
The move will have major impact on the wireless industry and could potentially have hurt AT&T, which has had exclusive rights to the phone. A deal between Verizon and Apple had been rumored for some time and the telco was widely expected to announce the iPhone at this year's CES.
The deal will also be important for Apple, which is facing rising competition from Android phones. It puts the iPhone on the nation's largest wireless carrier, providing Apple with a much larger potential consumer base, and will address some longstanding complaints about the AT&T network.
While the iPhone is still the most popular smart phone in the U.S., recent Nielsen data suggested that Android was closing the gap to just a few percentage points and in the last six months more new subscribers were selecting Android phones than iPhones.
It isn't immediately clear when iPhone would become available on Verizon's network.
Verizon is already selling the iPad.
