Verizon Wireless: LTE rollout is on schedule

By on Jun 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM
General June 15, 2010

VZW LTE Webcast June 15, 2010

Moments ago, during Verizon Wireless’ “700MHz LTE Device Specifications Webcast” VZW reaffirmed that their LTE rollout is on time and on schedule. Verizon plans to launch LTE in 25 to 30 markets by the end of this year, which Big Red states will cover roughly one-third of the U.S. population. The company also reiterated that by 2013 the LTE coverage map will meet, and in all likelihood surpass, the current 3G coverage map. Verizon also reviewed some of the tests they are  putting the LTE standard though, some of which include SMS-over-LTE and CDMA-to-LTE handoffs. There was no mention of when LTE enabled handsets will start flowing into the marketplace, but having a capable, tested network in place for when that time does come sounds like a great idea to us.

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  • JoshD4

    booooo

    still gonna be slower than Att’s 3G

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

    • Galen20K

      ha! Att is J U N K and you know it. T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint BLOW it away even if you are in denial.

      • Ethan

        Did you really just say Sprint is a better company than At&t? Sprint has to give their phones away and drop their rate plans down to nothing just to get people to sign up on their network. How does that qualify as a good company?
        Thats like a crack dealer giving you the first hit free so you’re hooked for 2 years.

      • ChocoTaco

        Sprint’s top-tier phone is better than Apple’s, they have oodles more 3G coverage than AT&T, they have significantly faster 4G, their rate plans are much, much better than AT&T’s and the voice quality is better than AT&T’s by leaps and bounds. How is Sprint not a better company than AT&T? Because you like AT&T’s commercials better? Or because more people have been conned into subscribing with them?

      • zeblog

        Wimax is not 4G. Not even close. Real 4G will rival broadband connections, and will be faster in some instances. Do a little research before spouting “information”.

      • bob

        Sprint’s wimax is barely faster than ATT 3g in most places… even if ATT does suck. get a grip.

    • Vince

      That might be true …if you can even find an area where AT&T has 3G coverage. They certainly didn’t have 3G coverage at WWDC! :P

      • b0stonirishguy13

        The problem at WWDC wasn’t the with the AT&T’s cellular network. It was the wifi that had problems. Mmm, ok…

      • Vince

        They couldn’t get a 3G signal either — check your facts, homie… mmm kay? ;)

      • Romeo

        You need to check your facts as well Vince… Verizon was having issues as well. Everyone and their MiFis =)

      • Mike

        What were they trying to use 3G for? Because FaceTime only works over WiFi (well, for now).

      • Romeo

        Steve was going on the “New York Times” (correct me if I’m wrong) webpage to show off the screen (again correct me if I’m wrong).

      • James

        Shut up you burnt sausage stick. Verizon has the cell game on lock. Once the iphone come to verizon at&t will loose most of its customers to verizon.

      • Romeo

        Don’t hate because you don’t have one, or lack thereof. I bet I’d be the Mayor of your girl’s home… “you’ve been ousted”

        What makes you think I even care if it goes elsewhere. Stop assuming, you make an ass out of yourself. I’d go right to T-mobile if they got it.

      • GogoEJ

        Were you even at WWDC?

      • Vince

        Nope, just followed online coverage of Apple / AT&T’s fail. You’d think they’d be smart enough to make sure the network (wi-fi or 3G) was working before trying to show off their “new” features (none of which cannot be found already in an Android phone). But I guess maybe I overestimate their level of intelligence. :P

      • iPaladin

        The problems faced by Apple were caused by 570 wireless routers being in the same room. That caused the Moscone wireless to stop functioning.

  • justjohnmichael

    lol @ VZW haters that worry more about a few megs/sec speed instead of the data network actually WORKING. You guys crack me up. ;)

    • X.X

      Having had Verizon for 9 years before switching to AT&T last year I can safely say the data speeds with Verizon are not even close to AT&T’s data speeds and I have yet to drop a data connection or have any issues connecting to the network with AT&T.

      As far as voice is concerned…sure, Verizon has AT&T beat hands down, the handoff from tower to tower with AT&T is horrible compared to Verizon but as I stated above data has never been an issue and is clearly better with AT&T (tested through all sorts of speed meters using EVDO aircards compared to my iPhone’s 3G connection)

      • KK

        I must agree X.X. I did the opposite – a long time AT&T customer who went to Verizon. Verizon’s 3G speeds are constantly slower than AT&T.

      • edk3

        yeah speed-wise at&t is faster when they have a solid connection.

        one thing for sure is that 3g on at&t does not work well while moving in a car.

        verizon will have lte all sorted out before at&t does. so verizon may actually have the first iphone 4G with lte.

  • DubYa

    Seeing as how we have heard nothing about 700Mhz handsets, having a 700Mhz LTE network will mean nothing.

    • palomosan

      Let’s wait and see when this rolls out and you’ll the monsters phones that’ll be dropping from MOTO, HTC and everybody else.

      • Joe B

        Sprint did the same thing for well over a year with their 4G network. It initially only worked for broadband cards. Verizon is more than likelely going to see it’s first 4G phones come May next year.

    • Mike

      Droid Pro/WE, homey.

      • James

        Hey cranberry muffin. Were not arguing how many sales iphone gets. Were talking about how bad at&t is. Put iPhone on verizon and see what happens also how do you feel about at&ts new data plans. No unlimited ha

      • James

        Sorry dude wrong person

      • zeblog

        I guess you didn’t see the data numbers. Verizon already uses more data than AT&T without having the iPhone. Amazingly they don’t have issues. It has more to do with the network structure and backend handling of that data than the amount that passes over it.

  • Blog Retards 4 Life

    Just VZ trying to get a headline while iPhone 4 whips their ass (again).

    • justjohnmichael

      ^^^typical iphone sheepoid ;)

    • James

      Hey cranberry muffin. Were not arguing how many sales iphone gets. Were talking about how bad at&t is. Put iPhone on verizon and see what happens also how do you feel about at&ts new data plans. No unlimited

  • grrr

    DroidX July 19th. Awesomeness

    • sinna

      yay!

    • Mike

      Getting that…then selling it for the Droid Pro/WE when that comes out. Gonna be a goodddd year. :)

    • thedogscar

      Was actually hoping the LTE would be delayed!!!

      I have waited almost a year to upgrade to a bigger screen (would like the Droid X or Dell Streak) … but if NYC will have 4G a few months after I buy it on July 19th … I might as well wait until they have a 4G phone

  • justjohnmichael

    ^^^typical iphone sheepoid. ;)

    • justjohnmichael

      you may neg-mod the above double-post. :)

  • Bunifa@SprintPOS

    At least we can finally have 4G that has 700Mhz spectrum for in building coverage.

  • The Prophet Mohammad

    Iphone on Verizon in 2013?

  • http://music.kwaping.com Kwaping

    No hardware announcements make this very difficult for me. I’m a VZW customer out of contract who is dying to upgrade my LG Dare. I was all set to invest in this next round of Android superphones, but now I don’t know if I should wait for LTE hardware or not!

    What do you guys recommend? I’m dying to get on Android, but I don’t want to regret my decision in six months!

    • Joe B

      Don’t wait LTE phones won’t be on Verizon until May next year or so. If you get annual upgrades by the time your 12 months is up Verizon 4G will just start to see phones coming out. I’d upgrade immediately to hold yourself over until then. Incredible, Ally, or one of the upcoming Moto Droids next month would be my reccomendation.

    • FriarNurgle

      Have a Dare also and feel your pain. Take the plunge or wait for the next best thing. Verizon is even offering me the Incredible for $50. Make me think it’ll be free next month when the new droids come out. Yet, they new droids may be worth it. Yet, there are rumors of a 2GHz phone in the works. AHHHHHHHH… too many choices and the iPhone4 is looking pretty good.
      Chances are I’ll be using the Dare until it falls apart.

      • Longshot

        Hey Friar – $50 for the HTC Incredible – is that new ? I am off-contract and the VZN CSR told me it was $169 ($30 discount).

  • Blog Retards 4 Life

    Wow. You all did know that VZ’s 4G is only about 400kbps faster than AT&T and T-Mobile 3G right? On a good day…with one device on the network.

    • Joe B

      That couldn’t be farther from the truth. LTE is LTE. Verizon and AT&T will be identical speeds once both roll out their 4G networks. The difference is Verizon has much more aggressive 4G plans than AT&T does and they will have the largest most reliable 4G network just as they do now with their 3G network.

    • justjohnmichael

      Your name says it all, Blog Retards 4 Life.

    • Capt.Obvious

      It’s Obvious you don’t know anything about at&t’s 3G coverage. In reality, it’s like a Bugatti (at&t) with a gallon of gas, vs a Corvette (Verizon) with a full tank of gas racing a 250 mile race. I’m sure you get the picture, then again you Obviously won’t.

    • boynamedyahoo

      Um, you did know that Verizon isn’t talking about peak speeds like every other mismarketing wireless operator right? 5-12mb/s DL and 2-5mb/s UL AVERAGE DATA RATES. What this means is on a loaded tower this is what you can expect. Had you been paying attention you would see they have indicated up to 60mb/s DL speeds on unloaded towers.

      Gets your facts, Verizon will be the only operator with LTE and 20mhz of spectrum in the 700mhz band from the DTV switch (Technically had you read the Verizon 10Q filing with SEC you would see they are also overlapping the wide coverage of 700mhz with their contiguous 20mhz of AWS spectrum east of the Mississippi.

  • doctagadget

    so there won’t be a software upgrade for the LTE network for existing phones? We will need to get new phones to utilize the new network?

    • QuickWeevil

      Correct. It’s a hardware thing, not a software fix.

  • 3 Phones Jugglin

    as far as im concerned…..Sprint & Verizon will have similar 4G Coverage…so its really a race to see who has the best Map by 2013 especially considering sprint has had a 2 year head start.

    By that time Even if Wimax or Wimax 2 takes the backseat..a simple firmare upgrade will be all thats necessary..the towers are already up.

    At&t & Tmobile however are nowhere to be found…Who will have the Best 4G devices??

    • Sin City

      It won’t be a simple toss up because of Sprint. Verizon will be using Dual Mode CDMA/LTE, while Sprint chooses between LTE Advanced/Wimax or WiMax 2 for both. Every 4G tower will get upgraded, while Sprint continue to add more towers in the states. Verizon will do the same thing initially, but give them a few years, and their up/down numbers will be way better. 3G was laughed upon at first, and now people in here bragging about it. That’s because technology always advance to something better in time.

      • Sin City

        In all honesty, WiMax 2 won’t happen but rather TD-LTE.

    • boynamedyahoo

      Careful what you repeat from the Clear and Sprint folks. Clear has already had to replace supposedly software upgradable pre-wimax equipment with new wimax gear. While LTE being so very similar to WIMAX on the downlink makes someone think its possible, note LTE uses different technology on the upload which may cause issues with the supposedly easy software switch. Call me a skeptic, but so called software upgrades never seem to work as advertised.

    • Nunya

      Really? You are comparing Wimax to LTE? Please go read the specs of both of them before you actually make claims about ‘similar’ 4G coverage. You may also want to know that Sprint no longer owns their own towers while VZW still does….nice try tho.

  • Blog Retards 4 Life

    Joe B – you are dead wrong.

    See the Youtube video VZ put out showing off 4G. 8Mbps down peak.

    That’s pretty weak. It will be surpassed before it even gets launched…hahahahaaha

  • Rational

    OK.

    I dont know about AT&T elsewhere but in the SF bay area they are way overloaded here. I just got a Sprint phone and it is kicking AT&T up and down the street in 3g.

    This is why I am going with sprint. And those who say the Iphone is not awesome are just not rational. ( i have used the 3g and 3gs). However, awesome hardware only goes so far with a network so overloaded that it is one step from imploding. Oh by the way if Verizon got the exclusive deal they probably would have failed too.

    Unfortunately, I cant remember if it was Jobs’ greed for exclusivity or verizon being too cheap that has put us in this situation.

    I have been using an Andriod phone (and previously using a Blackberry for 7 years) for a week now (EVO). Hardware wise not quite as elegant as the iphone but still damn nice. AND those shortfalls are more than made up with other benefits like a faster more reliable network, a nice huge screen (lets face it the retina difference from the EVO resoution is like arguing over 120hz and 240hz lcd panels. It is all way over our perception level. However, like linux it is too customizable and the average person will find they have to work too hard to customize. Oh and if you are power exchange user (all of exchange mail, calendar contacts AND task AND notes) RIM is still king. Though crippled on the AT&T network like the Iphone. Oh and I am being polite and not evn weighing the poor customer service at AT&T.

  • Rational

    Oh one thing that LTE and Wimax, even if they wont beat 3g max speeds, but if they can provide consistent 3g max speeds would be a win. 3g like 4g rarely gets its max speed. However, 4g may offer more bandwidth overall so connections are more reliable since they can handle more connections at one time.

  • DXM

    If you want info on LTE and WiMAX read this. 4G will blow away 3G in terms of speeds.

    http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/060710-tech-argument-lte-wimax.html

  • Percy

    Can’t wait!

  • joe

    does lte broaden service range as far as voice calling cause i live in eastern nc and i can hardly get service im hoping lte will extend the range of the voice qaulity

    • Nunya

      Yes it will…VZW is factoring blanket coverage (I believe this year is correct) for the U.S. in 2015.

  • iPaladin

    I’m awaiting the 4G network from Verizon, but who’s to say Apple will put a CDMA chip in for fallback to the CS network in areas where 4G is not available right away?

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