USA Today's Leslie Cauley reports today that Verizon Wireless "passed on the chance to be the exclusive distributor of the iPhone almost two years ago, balking at Apple's rich financial Terms and other demands."

Apple wanted a percentage of the monthly access fees, final say on where and how iPhones could be distributed, and total control of the customer service relationship with iPhone users. "We said no," says Verizon Wireless vice president Jim Gerace. "We have nothing bad to say about the Apple iPhone. We just couldn't reach a deal that was mutually beneficial."

Instead, of course, Cingular got the iPhone. "Apple and Cingular (which now is solely owned by AT&T and adopting that brand name) have declined to discuss terms of their alliance," Cauley writes. "But the Apple-Verizon talks offer a peek into the computer giant's thinking."

So the logical question is... what are the terms of the Cingular deal? No one's sayin'.

More here from ZDNet ... here from MacNewsWorld ... and here from SFGate.com.