Verizon and AT&T both made announcements recently regarding the future coverage and rollout dates of their LTE networks. According to eWeek, Verizon revealed plans to have their LTE network in 30 NFL cities by the end of the year. FierceWireless is reporting that AT&T will launch their LTE network in mid-2011, as well as upgrading their networks for an HSPA+ upgrade this year.
In regards to which NFL cities will be covered by Verizon's LTE network, you should be covered as long as your city has an NFL team. Engadget writes that "there are technically only 30 NFL markets, as New York has the Giants and Jets and the Raiders and 49ers play across the bay from each other." Speeds of the network are expected to be in the area of "5-12Mbps down and 2-5Mbps up speeds with 30-150ms latency promised for Big Red's LTE network at launch."
As for AT&T, FierceWireless reports that AT&T's LTE coverage will extend over 70-75 million residents by the end of 2011. Phandroid adds that AT&T is upgrading "their network to HSPA+ for the many people who won’t be getting a phone with hardware necessary to take advantage of LTE." The HSPA+ netowrk is expected to "deliver real-world download speeds of 7 Mbps."
According to eWeek, a Verizon senior federal sales executive talked about what devices are envisioned to be the first to use their 4G network:
McMonagle said he expects to see 4G initially being used by laptop wireless cards and by devices that could potentially monitor everything from traffic sensors to refrigerators. Because of the economies of scale that come from using Verizon's global, standards-based approach to LTE, he said, he expects the prices of such devices to drop quickly and for them to become virtually ubiquitous. As envisioned, the Verizon Wireless 4G network would use a flat IP addressing model, much like what you'd find in an enterprise network.
Androinica ponders why the first cities with Verizon's LTE service are also NFL cities:
It could be Verizon running a marketing tie-in with its substantial ties to the NFL or merely the fact that most major markets in the United States also have an NFL franchise (except for Los Angeles, of course).
Phandroid reminds their readers that the LTE rollout timeline seems to be going realatively quickly:
While nothing was said on their plans going into the first half of 2011, we did learn that they expect to have their entire coverage map drowned in LTE goodness by the end of 2013. That sounds like a long time from now, but think about how long T-Mobile customers had to wait for basic 3G.
Other Sources: Androinica, Engadget, FierceWireless, Phandroid
You must log in or register now,
to submit a comment!
As a logged in user, you can also change the order of the comments.