Verizon to launch 4G in fall 2010

21st April, 2010 by adina
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Dick Lynch, Verizon chief technical officer, has announced the launch of the company’s 4G network for this fall. The Long Term Evolution (LTE) access will be available to the promised 25 to 30 cities during the last three months of the year. Lynch did not offer any explanation for the delay but reiterated that “friendly” customers will be able to use the service earlier, in summer.

Verizon has a shorter window to implement 4G before AT&T has 4G available in 2011, but this aspect is not quite essential for its mobile strategy. Verizon’s earliest 4G devices will be routers and modems, because chipsets small and power-efficient to equip smartphones will only be ready early in 2011.

A 4G-level service in WiMAX is already available at Sprint, and the company will be the first with a 4G smartphone in the United States when the Evo 4G will ship this summer. Its service, however, will be hardly noticed in practice. Sprint estimates 3-6Mbps downstream under typical conditions, while Verizon has already performed tests at 5-12Mbps on its Long Term Evolution service.


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