Verizon CTO Says 4G Service Is On Track

Verizon has announced that it is on track to roll out their new 4G LTE service using the 700 MHz band that it acquired in the recent FCC auction. Targeted first towards USB air cards for laptop customers, the service will be extended to cell phones and other mobile devices with embedded LTE eventually. Testing in Boston and Seattle should conclude in the next couple of months and commercial deployments should follow soon thereafter. "Lynch said getting voice to work over LTE has been particularly challenging. But that challenge is getting resolved as Verizon and other members of the GSMA announced Monday they are supporting a standard that uses IMS technology to deliver voice services over LTE. Still, more work needs to be done. Until a solution is complete, Verizon will use its CDMA network to provide voice services. And the LTE network will be used for data. Eventually, when voice over LTE becomes a reality, Verizon will use that technology. Verizon will also have to integrate EV-DO into its LTE offering to ensure that customers can switch to the 3G EV-DO network when the 4G LTE network is not available. Even though Verizon is being aggressive in building its network, it won't happen overnight."

Impressive....

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So, everything is hunky-dory, going right according to plan.

But the phone company doesn't actually have any way of making the new technology make voice calls, so they'll be retaining the legacy CDMA technology. And, of course, they'll be building the intermediate legacy EV-DO technology for the forseeable future to deal with places where the new hotness is not actually available. Oh, and support for mobile devices is planned for "eventually"...

I wish my standards for success were this achievable.

Re:VoIP

[Anonymous Coward]

VoIP has large problems with latency. IP over wireless latency is all over the place. One tower can be 150ms the next 3000. Yet there will still be voice slots open. I know you will say go all IP. What about the *MILLIONS* of people out there with working cell phones who could give a crap about IP? They are in a bit of a pickle. They scavenged up all the slots for voice. Now they do not have enough for IP itself. Never mind the 8 different ways they have of talking over the air (all backwards compatible with the old AMPS network). LTE or WiMAX are the future (my money is on LTE due to who is going for it At&t, vodaphone, and verizon). But they do not have have (at least right now) the capital to spend on new equip. Especially when they have a depreciation sched of 5-10 years and just upgraded the whole show 3-4 years ago. They havent finished paying for the old equip yet and are upgrading when it makes sense and they think they can charge you more for it.

Just switching over to IP doesnt change their pricing model at all. The over the air cost is actually quite small (think cents per hour per hundred users). The real costs are the million dollar radios/backhaul lines. Then the tower rentals. Then all the people to support that. THEN and this is most important what the market will bare. People seem to think if it costs 2cents to make they should charge 2 cents. They are not a 'non profit' they will charge what they think they can get out of you (if its 2 cents or less they probably will not bother to do it at all). They will set their prices to the 'sweet spot'. So even if magically they go all IP they will still charge just as much. Take text messageing they literally get the over the air for free as the message is sent padded out all 0's anyway. It is the same message so the tower can see where you are at. Yet they charge what the market will bare in 15 cents to 50 cents a message.

Re:Wimax

[dzdragonlord]

It is worth nothing that while LTE is still in development Sprint and Clearwire have already deployed 4G services that are operational and covering 30 million people in the US. Wimax is deployed in around 145 countries worldwide. Sprint will have a 4G device in 2Q or 3Q this year, and will likely have 120 million people covered by 4G before LTE is even deployed here.

But the 4g sprint's rolling out is only 10 mb/s while the 4g verizon will be rolling out will be up to 100 mb/s.

Re:Wimax

[sonicmerlin]

Not true. What you're thinking of is LTE evolution, which is still being tested by carriers in other countries. Verizon's LTE is *not* 4G. From wiki: Being described as a 3.9G (beyond 3G but pre-4G) technology the first release LTE does not meet the IMT-advanced requirements for 4G also called IMT Advanced as defined by the International Telecommunication Union such as peak data rates up to 1 Gbit/s. Fortunately, LTE Advanced should be compatible with first release LTE equipment, and should share frequency bands with first release LTE. So if Verizon ever fancied upgrading, they could easily do so. Of course, with little to no competition in the US this is obviously not going to happen.