This initial rollout should cover more than 110 million Americans and will be concentrated in major markets in the Northeast, the South and parts of the West Coast. Verizon will also be launching 4G LTE service in more than 60 commercial airports.
As we've discussed before, LTE is proving to be a very important part of the next generation of mobile technologies. The two competing 4G standards being used for mass deployment are WiMax and LTE. In the U.S., WiMax is the technology that Sprint is using for its 4G network, but all the other major carriers (and many of the smaller or regional carriers) have embraced LTE. Likewise, in Europe and in other parts of the world, GSM and HSUPA networks are expected to upgrade to LTE.
In other words, LTE is quickly becoming a global standard, much as GSM/UMTS/HSUPA is in most parts of the world. The fact that Verizon has embraced LTE and will begin its rollout this year is also important. Historically, Verizon (like Sprint) has used the CDMA2000 standard. This has presented problems for phone manufacturers because most networks in the world simply do not run on CDMA. Aside from the U.S., parts of Japan and portions of Africa and South America, GSM and its successors have largely been the network protocol of choice.
That's why you see carrier specific phones for Verizon or Sprint (like certain BlackBerry models) and one reason why, AT&T contracts aside, bringing an iPhone to Verizon would be more problematic.
With LTE, Verizon will be embracing the same standard as the rest of the world. That means that companies like Nokia and Apple that don't make CDMA handsets can make handsets that will run on the new Verizon 4G network.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting on yet another round of iPhone on Verizon rumors. The Journal states that this would actually be a CDMA variant and not based on LTE. While we're convinced that the iPhone will indeed be coming to Verizon at some point, we still think it's much more likely that it will be in the form of an LTE handset (thus preventing the need to have one production line for a single carrier) and not CDMA.
Regardless, the implications for LTE go far beyond the iPhone. Android, for instance, is much more popular in the U.S. than it is in other parts of the world. While this is changing, one reason for Android's U.S. popularity is because of the Droid series on Verizon. The non-CDMA versions of those handsets are often released later in Europe and often don't have all the same features. If all the major players are on LTE, deploying a phone worldwide across networks (much as Samsung did with its Galaxy S) will be much more feasible.
4G LTE Cities
These are the 38 cities that Verizon will be rolling out its 4G network to by the end of the year:
*Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Initial Major Metropolitan Area Deployment *
Akron, Ohio
Athens, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Baltimore, Maryland
Boston, Massachusetts
Charlotte, North Carolina
Chicago, Illinois
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Dallas, Texas
Denver, Colorado
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Houston, Texas
Jacksonville, Florida
Las Vegas, Nevada
Los Angeles, California
Miami, Florida
Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota
Nashville, Tennessee
New Orleans, Louisiana
New York, New York
Oakland, California
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Orlando, Florida
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Phoenix, Arizona
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Rochester, New York
San Antonio, Texas
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
San Jose, California
Seattle/Tacoma, Washington
St. Louis, Missouri
Tampa, Florida
Washington, D.C.
West Lafayette, Indiana
West Palm Beach, Florida
Obviously this is just going to be the start, but we think this is a pretty impressive spread. Much of the rollout is going to be targeted in the northeast, but we're excited to see that the south - namely Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans are getting coverage too.
In the Midwest, Chicago and the major cities in Ohio are part of the rollout, but much of the rest of the Midwest and non-metropolitan West Coast cities are exempt from this round.
One of the big advantages of LTE -- like WiMax -- is that the technology can be deployed in rural areas that can't always get access to broadband Internet or 3G wireless. Future deployments will likely go beyond just the big cities and bring access to areas that may not even have standard 3G Verizon coverage.
AT&T plans to start rolling out its LTE upgrades in 2011. Sprint, which continues to deploy WiMax, has also stated that if it makes sense, it will put out an LTE network alongside its WiMax network.