Jan 8, 2011 09:11 GMT  ·  By

Mobile phone carrier Verizon Wireless is on its way to bring to the market next month the first CDMA flavor of the highly-popular Apple iPhone, some of the latest reports on the matter suggest.

In all fairness, the near launch of iPhone on Big Red was rumored before, and it might all turn out to be nothing more than mere speculation once again.

However, things might actually pan out this time, and the official announcement regarding the near launch of a Verizon iPhone is expected to be made no later than Tuesday, January 11th, 2011.

The Wall Stree Journal reports that Verizon plans a January 11th press event where it would officially unveil its plans to carry the Apple iPhone.

Moreover, a recent article on AllThingsDigital suggests that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would join Verizon President and COO Lowell McAdam onstage at the event.

For the time being, it's not certain whether Jobs would indeed make an appearance there, though it seems that the arrival of the iPhone at Verizon in February is almost confirmed.

Reports on the possible arrival of this device at Big Red started to emerge a few years ago, but gained more substance last year, when various reports on the near arrival of the CDMA iPhone at other carriers too started to emerge.

Nothing was confirmed officially as of yet, but various sources suggested that Apple kicked off production of this iPhone flavor several months ago, and that Verizon would be among the first carriers to receive it.

As far as we know, AT&T is still the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the United States at the moment, though the fact that Apple chose to end the exclusivity deals with carriers in many markets around the world points at a near end of the US deal as well.

Provided that the said press event is indeed aimed at the unveiling of a Verizon iPhone, all the necessary details on this would become available next week.

As for the February launch, BGR has it under good authority Apple froze employee vacations between the 3rd and the 6th day of the month, which would point towards a possible release of the iPhone on Verizon's network at that time.