Verizon Wireless to begin LTE rollout in Q4 2009?
According to Dick Lynch, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless is pushing up the timetable for its LTE rollout, aiming now for a late Q4 2009 deployment. Considering that Lynch said, “We expect that LTE will actually be in service somewhere here in the U.S. probably this time next year,” we can ascertain the initial deployment will be limited in scope and that the date is not set in stone. Nonetheless, such an aggressive timetable suggests that Verizon is trying to get a jump on their US competition and is keeping up with the likes of Japan’s NTT DoCoMo who recently announced that it expects to have LTE commercially available in 2010. Lynch also revealed that femtocell technology will be an important part of LTE deployment. Femtocells will be available for subscribers and will be used to increase the signal strength and range indoors. The LTE femtocells may also include integrated WiFi so non-cellular, WiFi-enabled devices can connect to the LTE network as well. With all this talk of LTE, femtocells, and a target launch of 2009, are you getting excited yet for this new 4G technology? We sure are.
Bring it ON!!!
Well on the surface this is great news. However, my very next reaction is what will Verizon find to immediately and intentionally “cripple” within their own new super fast 4G network? They’ll no doubt find SOMETHING to cripple for sure. Second question is are existing phones compatible with 4G or will all new phones be needed?
It won’t happen.
New phones will be needed of course. If they get some new HTC WM phones (htc hd like), I’d consider a move away from AT&T.
So, two questions:
I live in PDX and I can now get unlimited WiMax with no contract for $50 a month for wireless broadband. Good deal or no? I think it’s a good deal – it offers an easy out when VZW gets it together.
Is VZW going to give up or raise their broadband cap for their data users? With those speeds and so much crap on the web running in the background (ads, movies) and free porn out there – one can blow through 5 GB in a matter of days. That cap had better be gone or raised to a realistic volume of data.
I lol’d @ free porn.
@Chris – being a former Portland resident you are one lucky person. Sprint uses Portland as a trial/beta market for a ton of new products (Free and Clear America) was tested (I was a beta tester for that) back in 2001-2002. So if you looking for new advances, stick with Sprint/Clearwire. Verizon has problems covering that area, just north in Centralia is who..Verizon using Sprints network and infrastructure (or at least used to) to roll out things. Does that say much?
Personally Im thinking Verizon is pooping a bit now that Sprint/Clearwire has pushed forward a few markets in the last week. Good for Verizon for showing dedication, shame its not T-Mobile (cause then I might like LTE over WiMAX)… till then, Im 100$ WiMAX dedicated.
I’m normally the first one to grab the new tech, but in this case – I’m going to wait. I like LTE over WiMax mostly because LTE is going to be the defacto “world standard” by sheer majority of carriers.
Sprint has been in a death spiral for two years now and they are profusely bleeding capital and subscribers.
What irks me is, these companies have all these hundreds of billions in the bank yet we are stuck paying such high prices and bitching about lack of coverage and stupid bandwidth caps. That, right there, is bullshit.
Finally Vodafone gets to move Verizon to a world stage and now I’ll have some options from ATT and Verizon (T-Mobile sucks in my home country). When Verizon wireless sold Verizon Wireless Latin America, they started to make the move to GSM leaving CDMA behind, so now I only have 1 choice ATT, but with Verizon moving to LTE I can pickup an LTE Vodafone cell and use it here.
Though does anyone think ATT will move their plans forwards to directly compete with Verizon. In the world stage what does this mean? Also how come I see the doom of Sprint? With their decision to move to WiMax over LTE what does that mean?
This move makes sense. CDMA is done from a speed perspective. They have pretty much maxed out CDMA Rev A. Investing anything more in CDMA is a waiste of money so sure, in order to stay competitive from a network speed perspective they will need to move to LTE.
But, don’t be mislead by the 4G tag on LTE and WiMAX. UMTS, or 3G for GSM, with future upgrades will still be as fast if not faster than early deployments of these future technologies.
With LTE, it is possible to do voice and data at the same time?
Hmmmm.. iPhone LTE?
umm… it’s possible to do data and voice concurrently on 3G, it BETTER be possible on a 4G network!
On LTE there will be no such thing as “voice” like it exists on CDMA/GSM/UMTS/whatever, or so I’ve heard- I believe the plan is to transition everything to VoIP-based systems running over the more robust data network.
This is interesting. I asked at the very beginning if all new phones would be needed for LTE and someone said yes. If that’s the case then who would buy an existing Verizon phone in 2009 if it’s going to be obsolete in less than a year? Verizon has to find a way to make existing phone run on LTE. I think the existing chips in our phones have to be able to handle this new network. Any more thoughts on this?
Verizon won’t be shutting down the CDMA/EV-DO networks to introduce LTE, the LTE will be put on the new spectrum that they bought in the 700Mhz range. Just like they kept the analog network up for a very long time after introducing CDMA, the CDMA/EV-DO network will likely be kept for long enough that by the time they pull the plug, only a very small number of people will be left.
Back @ you, Roger A – I’m leaning toward getting a Wi-Max card with no contract soon to check it out. I ditched my landline and went with a ATTWS broadband card six months ago as I’m working on the road and it’s OK – my work at the coast and around Seattle are covered with 3G and I was GF’ed in with no overage fees, but it’s a little slow sometimes.
Got a taste of the new card and it’s really pretty sweet – not cable-sweet, but enough to work well for me. I’ve got a few accounts with ATTWS and VZ and I’ll be done with those contracts about when LTE rolls out.
I’m looking to see if we can get one of those new EVDO/Wi-Max cards available in Baltimore and with unlimited data. Gotta make my accountant work for his money this year!
Im excited that Verizon is going to finally be on LTE. Why? Because the phone market will just get that much better. With VZW right now, your stuck with whatever phone they offer. With LTE you’ll be able to use a vast majority of phones out there. The other good thing about LTE and a CDMA network is there is no network outages(hopefully) when creating LTE. Since they are different networks they should operate independently(again hopefully). When ATT switched over to 3G this past year there where all kinds of network outages. Oh well it should make for some interesting events not the “best network” guys are starting over and are on the same playing field with the competition.
They’re smart, finally they realize that CDMA is not going anywhere and it can’t compete with HSPA.
Verizon/att phones still won’t be interchangable for a while. The verizon phones will be cdma/lte and att will be gsm/lte. If you use one on the other network you will only have lte coverage. Once the networks are big and reliable enough it won’t matter but when it first comes out it will matter.
@ doggie
For something that isn’t going anywhere they sure have been stiff competition. There are way more cdma users than gsm in the u.s.
Sprint and thier Wi Max put a little pressure on them maybe? Clear and Sprint 4G will have been around for some months by then
This makes total sense to me–but I don’t think VZW is too worried about Sprint/Clearwire. They’re focused on AT&T as their primary competition. AT&T still has room to grow on their current network with HSPA+ debuting some time next year. Verizon has made no additional commitments to EVDO Rev. B/C (has any carrier?) and probably wants to leverage an early LTE deployment as a strategic advantage over AT&T.
I wouldn’t expect 50+mbps with the initial rollout–I’m not saying VZW will cripple their network but I don’t think early commercial devices will be capable of those sustained speeds.
The ability to use a large number of handsets is a huge step in its own right.
So…. I am confused about the femto comments in the article … The femto’s we have seen so far all use DSL/Cable connections for backhaul. Are we to buy a femtocell for LTE, and then be forced to keep our Land-based HSI for its backhaul? I don’t see WTF the point would be… and the femto will offer WiFi? Congratufigginlations… WiFi is the one wireless product that already works well in my house (who DOESN’T already have a wifi router?) I would foresee a bigger market for LTE (and WiMAX for that matter) repeaters, or even high gain antenna products for home coverage rather than femtocells. If the whole idea is to get me to leave my traditional HSI for wireless, it kinda defeats the purpose if I have to keep it to give VZW free backhaul.