It is finally, really, actually, verifiably true: Verizon will officially offer the iPhone starting February 10th of this year. Lowell McAdam made the announcement from New York this morning, saying, “If the press write something long enough, eventually it comes true. We’re very very excited about our announcement today.”

It is definitely exciting news. People have been waiting a very long time for this kind of announcement, though personally, I won’t be switching. Not yet anyway.

For one thing, Verizon’s network will be slower. More reliable? Sure, but still slower. I live in a small town in North Carolina and I rarely see service congestion on my iPhone. While AT&T is definitely unreliable in other parts of the world, it’s just fine here. My data is snappy and I rarely drop calls. The only reason to switch would be in network calling to the rest of my family, but I have enough rollover minutes saved up to more than accommodate my dialing habits.

At the very earliest, I’d think about switching in June of 2012. By then, the iPhone 6 should be out, and Verizon’s network should be fast enough to warrant the change. I’ll also, god willing, be living in a different part of the country, and I’d like the assurance that I’ll have a reliable network there.

There is one extremely compelling reason to switch, even if you aren’t having network trouble. The Verizon iPhone will allow you to create a Wi-Fi hotspot. After traveling near the holidays and getting stuck in airports with $7/hour internet fees, I would love few things more than the ability to use my phone as a hotspot. I would say that AT&T will get this feature soon, but the truth is it probably won’t. AT&T has enough data trouble as it is. Clogging its network with more data means reliability will likely take another hit, something AT&T can’t really afford. We’ll see how Verizon handles the iPhone data load.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Verizon is indeed finally going to get the iPhone on Tuesday. Yes, these are the same people that have said Verizon would have the phone months and months ago, but it looks like the stars have finally aligned and we’ll see the iPhone on Big Red this week.

Just so everyone is clear, this is a CDMA version of the phone. You will not be able to port your AT&T phone to Verizon. If you’re looking to sell your phone to subsidize your transfer, you better list that thing today. I’d imagine we’ll see a glut of GSM iPhones hit Craigslist and eBay over the next couple days.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has again nailed down the reason the event on Tuesday will be hosted by Verizon in New York and not Apple in California. This isn’t really an Apple event. While Apple will make a metric shit-ton of money off the deal, you can’t really ask Steve Jobs to get on stage and say, “Hey, look how magical this network is on the same phone you’ve had for six months. No no, nothing’s different about the phone. Just the network. That’s all.”