Despite a volley of 4G-related announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show this past week, Verizon Wireless apparently decided to tap into the spirit of Steve Jobs himself for “one last thing.” On Friday, invitations went out for a special event for tomorrow, January 11, that is widely expected to bring the iPhone to a second U.S. carrier after nearly four years.

Of course, in any other country, more than one choice of carrier for the iPhone would hardly be newsworthy -- most European countries already have at least a couple of choices in many territories, and even our Canadian friends up north have a trio to choose from. America, on the other hand, has been exclusively chained (and not always happily) to AT&T since the device debuted here in June, 2007 -- with pundits trying to predict when the handset will arrive on other carriers prior to each subsequent refresh.

Apparently, Apple wants tech bloggers to find something new to talk about, having finally delivered The Beatles on iTunes last year and now it would appear the Verizon iPhone is a reality. According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon will announce a deal with Apple at a special event in New York City on Tuesday which should finally silence the pleading cries of would-be owners for the device on the CDMA carrier and likely provide Apple with further explosive growth for a handset that’s already got plenty to spare.

But the move is ripe for almost as many negative effects as there are positive -- most certainly for AT&T, who analysts believe may start to bleed customers as a result of the loss of the iPhone as an exclusive, but also for third and fourth place U.S. carriers Sprint and T-Mobile, who are still left with no invitations to the party. Let’s take a look at both side of the coin.

It’s All Good: The Pros

There’s little doubt that a Verizon iPhone will do nothing but good for Apple, who continues to defy critics by soaring to ever-loftier heights each quarter. Many believe that what goes up must come down, but apparently that’s not in the cards -- at least not yet. A Verizon iPhone would create a surge of new customers loyal to the carrier, and that could expand even further if Apple also unleashes a CDMA-packing iPad 2 in the first quarter of this year, as widely expected (or hey, we’d happily take a 4G LTE model, too).

A surge of new customers will also benefit third-party app developers -- with so many potential Verizon customers chomping at the bit for so long to get their hands on an iPhone and the App Store that goes along with it, there could be a second gold rush for developers. Even if some of those new customers have been happy to bide their time with an iPod touch, there are plenty of iPhone-specific apps for them to gorge on when they finally clutch the device in their sweaty little palms.

Verizon will also certainly be a major benefactor of the iPhone, not only capitalizing on pent-up demand from its own customers who have been “making do” with Android handsets the last couple years, but also from new customers who want an iPhone but lived in areas where AT&T’s 3G service was poor or missing entirely. While Verizon isn’t exactly hurting lately with 92 million customers (versus AT&T’s 90 million), the arrival of the iPhone on their network will surely be extra incentive for those who have considered jumping ship from actually doing so.

There has been some prognostication which suggests that Verizon’s iPhone could even be a global model -- using CDMA antennas for their home network, but with an unlocked GSM SIM card slot (likely the same micro-SIM in the current iPhone 4) so customers could take their device overseas and use local SIM cards to save big, all without the need to jailbreak and unlock their handset. This would be a smart move on Verizon’s part, since CDMA is not widely used in other parts of the world. It could even potentially allow Apple to make one universal version of the handset for all of their worldwide carriers.

On the same front, a second carrier here in the U.S. might even encourage Apple and AT&T to finally do away with at least part of the “cat and mouse game” with hackers by finally allowing customers to officially unlock their devices without jailbreaking -- after all, AT&T would have nothing to fear by doing so, since their GSM handsets wouldn’t work on Verizon’s incompatible CDMA network anyway. You can generally unlock a GSM handset with AT&T or T-Mobile after so many months into your agreement, yet the iPhone continues to be locked down tight nearly four years later.

Competition for iPhone customers could benefit consumers with lower prices, too -- Verizon will likely want to lure AT&T customers will better, cheaper data and voice plans for their iPhone, and AT&T may have no recourse but to respond with cuts of their own. Let’s face it, cell phone plans are all expensive, so any cuts from either or both sides would be welcome. Verizon is also more likely to offer unlimited data plans for their iPhone, which could force AT&T to rethink the unpopular data caps they rolled out last year.

A Verizon iPhone could even benefit those apparently few AT&T customers who are actually happy with their existing service -- if the most vocal whiners make good on their threats and jump ship to Verizon as we’ve all heard for years, it could finally clear up a lot of the network congestion the carrier has dealt with and give the rest of us a better experience at long last.

Ruh-Roh: The Cons

On the flip side, a mass exodus of AT&T customers to the Verizon iPhone could wreak havoc on Big Red’s network and quickly shift the direction of a lot of the hate laid at AT&T’s feet all this time. Existing Verizon customers potentially have the most to fear, since they’ve been enjoying the creature comforts of their favorite carrier all this time with relatively few hiccups, mocking frustrated iPhone users on AT&T.

Sprint and T-Mobile executives are likely to need a change of underwear come Tuesday since they’ve been bleeding customers to their two larger rivals all along -- even though only one of them had the iPhone. Can you imagine how many they could potentially lose with both carriers offering the iPhone? At the very least, there’s going to be some major hand-wringing in the board room for the next few weeks as these companies hold their breath and wait to see just how bad the fallout really is.

Despite the widely held belief that AT&T’s entire business will come crashing down around it when they lose their envied iPhone exclusivity, executives have been quick to downplay any potential damage in recent months. After all, it’s just one phone, right? They still do plenty of business with Android, Blackberry, webOS, Symbian and now Windows Phone 7 devices -- and it’s not exactly like Apple is going to stop selling the iPhone through AT&T anyway, they’re just adding a second carrier to the mix.

Don’t entirely believe that AT&T smokescreen, however -- you can bet that they’ll be feeling a little sting as unhappy current customers whose two-year agreements have ended switch teams and buy their next iPhone from Verizon. But it won’t be nearly as apocalyptic as many pundits would have you believe. Remember, AT&T was doing just fine before the iPhone, and they’ll likely continue to be for years to come.

Anyone who tried in vain to preorder an iPhone 4 last year from Apple’s website will likely be feeling even more pain and suffering when the iPhone 5 arrives in June -- two carriers could make it twice as difficult to place those orders on Apple.com, assuming that Cupertino doesn’t beef up their servers before that fateful day arrives. On the flip side, it’s possible that adding Verizon as a second carrier could spread some of that misery around -- maybe this year, would-be iPhone 5 customers can band together and crash Apple, AT&T and Verizon servers, all on the same day.

Current AT&T iPhone customers may have something else to fear: What if Apple gives Verizon a slightly better iPhone 4 as rumored in recent leaks (or, God forbid, the iPhone 5)? Steve Jobs may have placated his “Antennagate” woes with free cases and bumpers for all last summer, but if Verizon’s iPhone has even subtle tweaks that improve upon the existing design, Apple could face a hellacious outcry from existing customers the likes of which haven’t been seen since 2007, when the company handed out $100 credits to placate annoyed buyers on the heels of a steep price cut on the original model. Stupid or not, you can bet that one or more class action lawsuits would soon follow, as they always seem to.

However, perhaps the joke will be on Verizon customers instead. Apple will surely release an iPhone 5 in June of this year, in keeping with their annual refresh schedule. Even if Verizon gets a slightly better iPhone 4 now, those early adopters may feel cheated in a few months when the iPhone 5 comes along -- especially if it’s a universal model that works on both AT&T and Verizon. (Then again, Verizon users are used to the carrier rolling out newer, better Android models every few months as it is.)

Things could get rough for Google as well -- they’ve no doubt enjoyed all the special attention Verizon has placed on Android devices for the last couple years, watching as the carrier trotted out product lines like the Droid, complete with cheeky ads laden with not-so-subtle jabs at Apple. You can bet that Steve Jobs will make sure that type of marketing goes swimming with the fishes once the iPhone appears on the scene, and there’s no way of knowing how many Android users might switch teams when their two-year agreements are up.

It Won’t Really Change the World

The reality is, the iPhone landing on Verizon won’t really be much of a game changer. After all, Apple doesn’t appear likely to make a big, bold move this year like 4G LTE, preferring to sit on the sidelines and wait for carriers to beef up their networks, much in the same way that the original 2007 iPhone used the more reliable EDGE network over the fledgling 3G. (You’ll recall all the screaming about how bad AT&T was didn’t really start until the iPhone 3G came out in 2008.)

In the near future, the iPhone will likely be on all four major U.S. carriers, and then everyone will look back on the last few years and wonder what the fuss was all about, having long forgotten the “ball and chain” shackles of AT&T or even the enthusiastic response that’s sure to appear this week when Verizon walks on stage and says, “We’ve got it.”

For now, a Verizon iPhone will be treated as an “event” -- at least until Steve Jobs steps on stage in June to show off the iPhone 5, and then the whole thing will start up all over again.

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(Image courtesy of 9to5Mac.com)