One of the longest lock-ins in the technology business ended shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, when Verizon Chief Operating Officer Lowell McAdam told a crowd of invited journalists and analysts that Verizon Wireless would begin selling its version of Apple’s iPhone 4 on Feb. 10.

Wireless users had been hoping for the news since not long after the iPhone’s debut as an AT&T exclusive in the summer of 2007. Few gadgets have been tied to a single service provider in one market for that long, and few have been as coveted as Apple’s smartphone.

Apple’s move breaks open a monopoly that had drawn criticism among consumer advocates, terminates AT&T’s most-favored-carrier status with the Cupertino, Calif., company and elevates Verizon as a new long-term partner for the maker of the iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac computers.

“Today, two industry innovators are coming together to deliver something that consumers have been hungry for for years,” McAdam said as he opened the event.

Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook returned the compliment a few minutes later. “We have enormous respect for the company this team has built and the hard-won loyalty they’ve won from their customers,” he said. “This is just the beginning of a great relationship between Apple and Verizon.”

AT&T has a great deal to lose, with published estimates putting its potential subscriber losses to Verizon as high as 5 million to 6 million over the next two years. Its spokesman put out a consistent message Tuesday: “ForiPhone users who want the fastest speeds, the ability to talk and use apps at the same time, and unsurpassed global coverage, the only choice is AT&T.”

The arrival of the iPhone 4 on Verizon also resets the competitive equation between Apple’s mobile devices and their biggest competitor, smartphones running Google’s Android operating system.

Users who wanted a Web-capable device with access to thousands of add-on applications but did not want to sign up with AT&T have often gone with Android phones. Verizon pushed Google’s software especially hard – NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin estimated that 70 percent of the carrier’s third-quarter smartphone sales consisted of Android models.

But Rubin note d that Verizon is leaning on Android phones to launch its 4G – short for “fourth-generation” – LTE mobile broadband service, while the iPhone 4 will only be able to connect to its much larger but slower 3G network.

Rubin also suggested that Android could get more support from an unexpected quarter: “AT&T will dive into Android as they lose their iPhone exclusivity.”

Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, N.J., will start selling its version of the iPhone 4 on Feb. 10, although its current customers can pre-order it as of Feb. 3. A version with 16 gigabytes of storage will sell for $199.99 with a two-year service contract, and a 32GB model will cost $299.99, almost exactly the same prices AT&T charges.

Would-be iPhone users on Verizon will need to sign up for a voice plan, starting at $39.99 a month, and data service, though the carrier isn’t saying what that will cost. Most of its smartphoneusers now pay $29.99 a month for unlimited data access.

AT&T’s voice plans cost about the same, but it stopped selling unlimited data service last summer and instead charges $25 a month for a maximum of 2GB. Neither carrier includes text messaging in those plans.

Switching to a Verizon iPhone may not be as automatic or easy as ads may suggest. Disgruntled AT&T subscribers who haven’t finished up their service contracts will have to pay early-termination fees if they want to switch. They also won’t be able to bring their old iPhones to Verizon, since the two carriers use incompatible wireless technologies.

In addition, they’ll lose the ability to browse the Web over a mobile-broadband signal during a phone call, and the Verizon phone, unlike AT&T’s, won’t work in most foreign countries.

The Verizon-Apple news left open the possibility of the iPhone appearing on other carriers. Although Cook described the arrangement as “strategic” and running multiple years, he added that it’s non-exclusive. That doesn’t mean we’ll see a Sprint or a T-Mobile iPhone anytime soon, but it does raise the odds that customers of those carriers will start wishing for such a thing.