As everyone had guessed last week as soon as the press conference was announced, Skype and Verizon have announced that Verizon will be allowing Skype to work on all Verizon 3G-enabled smartphones. According to a Verizon press release, the new new Skype mobile product was cooked up in collaboration with Skype, and will drop next month. According to Verizon, here's the list of smartphones the service will work on:After trying so hard to fight of the inevitable evolution of open wireless networks, Verizon executives finally realized they were fighting a losing battle -- and so will make charging more money for wireless data their primary focus moving forward. Who needs wireless voice or SMS revenues when you can require that everyone pay for a monthly data plan? Especially when those users are given the "choice" of either paying an extreme premium by the megabyte (20 cents per MB over 25 MB per month), or signing up for a more expensive "unlimited" (actually 5GB) plan?

Any Abramson over at VoIP Watch has a little more detail we've not seen elsewhere (he's in Barcelona where the announcement was made). Abramson notes that Verizon is using circuit switched voice and not 3G to kick off this little endeavor. He also notes that interestingly enough -- Wi-Fi is not supported by this initial release. Meanwhile according to the Associated Press, minutes will be deducted to use the service when calling U.S. numbers.

There's some fine print in this deal many outlets are missing as they trip over themselves to proclaim Verizon has fully embraced openness. Still: baby steps, right?