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back to article Verizon to blanket US with 4G LTE this year

Verizon has announced that it will roll out 4G LTE coverage for 110 million Americans later this year. And AT&T is not impressed. "With our initial 4G LTE launch, we will immediately reach more than one-third of all Americans where they live, right from the start," said Verizon president and CEO Lowell McAdam in a prepared …

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  1. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Not really blanketing, but...

    They DO plan to have 100% of their 3G network upgraded by 2014.. the plan is to do those cities by the end of this year, to light up everything within 50 miles of the interstates by 2011, do most of the rest in 2012 and then 2013 do the really rural sites where they'll have to be creative (some of these don't have grid power, they use wireless backhaul only, etc.)

    AT&T makes me laugh -- they do have some areas faster than Verizon right now, but if you look at their coverage, they have like 20% of their own network upgraded to 3G (versus Verizon being at about 95%), and their network is smaller to boot. Verizon will probably have more LTE by 2011 than AT&T even has 3G.

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    1. Lance 3
      Reply Icon

      Not true

      AT&T covers more of the population and 3G is available in the more populous areas. Also, Verizon has a hodge podge of "3G" technologies in use. 1xRTT is considered a 3G technology but only offers 144Kbps. Ask the 3GPP what 3G technology is as well as the ITU and they include 1xRTT.

      Right now, there is no standardized voice over LTE technology. There are two competing camps.

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      1. kyle elliott
        Reply Icon

        Coverage

        Verizon covers not only the same areas AT&T has, but more. AT&T claims to cover 98% (with 20% of their coverage area being 3g) of all people in the US, but they leave out the fact that Verizons number is closer to 99.8%, all under 3g

        Verizon's network also has the highest building penetration rate, causing less dropped calls. I used to work in a building that was considered a dead zone by all the carriers. Me being on Verizon I had perfect signal, always. The people on other networks were lucky when they had 1 bar. Those fancy new iPhones that came out when I was there were useless in the building.

        Remember kids, speed is useless if you can't make a connection to the towers.

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  2. Mage Silver badge
    Badgers

    LTE speed?

    Only x10 if you have a really rubbish over congested 3G network!

    Only x4 if you have 20MHz LTE channels vs 5MHz 3G, But a Congested LTE is twice as fast as congested 3G., i.e. 800Kbps instead of 100kbps on 20MHz FDD LTE compared to 5MHz FDD 3G/HSPA with heavy load of users on sector.

    marketing by Badgers

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  3. cmaurand
    Linux

    CDMA

    Is already digital and faster than the GSM network. The GSM network has more limitations in that it is TDMA (older analog). Both technologies are incompatible with LTE (OFDM) or WiMAX (OFDM). Both rollouts will be slow due to the hurdle of having to replace infrastructure and the need to have phones that work on both or all three networks simultaneously. Expect rural areas to take far longer.

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    1. Richard Gadsden 1
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      GSM is only TDMA for 2G or below

      3G GSM is WCDMA, which is not a TDMA technology. And TDMA wasn't analogue in the first place - it's a digital technology, which is why you can run GPRS or EDGE over it.

      AT&T's implementation might be crappy, but there's an entire continent running on GSM just the other side of the Atlantic, and we're not all on analogue. Indeed Verizon runs (under the Vodafone brand) GSM networks here in Europe and they work just fine. Don't let AT&T use the technology as an excuse for their inability to build a working network!

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    2. Lance 3
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      More FAIL

      TDMA is DIGITAL just like CDMA is digital. Analog service has been off for a few years. 2G was digital. How is "CDMA" faster? There are multiple CDMA specs and CDMA95 gave you 9600/14400 modem speeds. Then you had 1xRTT which is about 144Kbps; GPRS/EDGE can give you more than that.

      3G GSM is W-CDMA; it was available in the 1996 time frame in Japan. Rather than that 9600/14400 it provided 56k.

      Why do they need phones that work on all three? Do you know anything of the tower equipment? Most of the tower equipment uses DSP's and thet can offer GSM, GPRS, EDGE, W-CDMA/UMTS/HSDPA, CDMA-95, 1xRTT, EVDO, WiMAX and LTE.

      The "GSM" phones will have a much easier time than the CDMA to LTE phones though.

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  4. Brett Brennan 1
    Go

    Thank Sprint/Clear for LTE!

    Remember, if Sprint/Clearwire weren't actually having success with the WiMAX 4G, neither Verizon or AT&T would give a dingo's kidneys about LTE deployment.

    And, yes, LTE is the future: WiMAX is a transitional technology, or something that will eventually be relegated to "super WiFi" status (and possibly mooted entirely if "whitespace" makes any headway).

    However, having myself been on WiMAX for a year, it is a significant bump over *ALL* 3G technologies. How about streaming full screen 720p video from Amazon, and that with only 20% signal strength? Pretty much the same performance as mid-tier ADSL or Cable DOCSIS 3, and about the same latency. And LTE promises to be damn near FTTC speeds. Or it will be until the iPhone 6 crowd hits it...

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