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The Tech Herald recently sat in on a Verizon Wireless conference call aimed at announcing the $1 billion USD wireless investment in Indiana. However, the call also included some information on Verizon’s 4G offering, which also goes by the name of LTE or Long Term Evolution. Here’s a breakdown of the information collected from the call.
Verizon: LTE confirmed on conference call – billions spent on network. (IMG:J.anderson/Verizon)
First off, despite mixed rumors and figures, Greg Haller, who is Verizon’s President in the Michigan/Indiana/Kentucky Region, said that the LTE plan is still just as aggressive. “The plan is still 30 markets and 100 million people by next year,” he told us on the call. However, he added that determining the 30 markets is still under development.
The strategy for rolling out LTE is the same as it is with any other Verizon data rollouts, the large markets are first (New York, Los Angeles, etc.) and expanding from there. Overall Haller added, “…the goal is to have LTE across our entire footprint by 2013.”
That’s an impressive and rather aggressive goal. Within 4 years, the entire Verizon footprint will have access to 4G (LTE) services. The question is will they meet their self-imposed deadline? If not, what happens?
Another fact about LTE from the call centers on restrictions. There will be an increase in the limits on bandwidth, so perhaps more than the 5GB monthly limit currently in place on the 3G network, but “…you won’t ever see an unlimited plan,” Haller explained.
We asked, since the initial reason for the call was the announcement of a $1 billion USD investment milestone in Indiana, how Verizon has invested in other areas. We were not surprised to see that Verizon has kept to their marketing when it comes to investments in wireless builds.
Since 2000 for example, Verizon has plunged $2.2 billion USD in Metro New York and New Jersey, $1.3 billion USD in Michigan, almost $2 billion USD in Florida, $1.2 billion in Illinois, and $277.4 million in Wisconsin.
“…network spend by state is determined not only by population but by need, and when Verizon Wireless was formed in 2000, we already had a pretty strong network in Indiana. You may see larger investment figures in other states: This doesn't take into account what was spent on the network before 2000. The point is we'll never let up on our commitment to network reliability,” Michelle Gilbert told us after the call when we asked for investment figures.
Long Term Evolution for Verizon is more than the build out of 4G capacity. This is a serious step and investment for them. For example, LTE will use the 700MHz spectrum that the FCC auctioned off a few years ago, Verizon managed to get “every square inch of continental U.S. and Hawaii” covered by paying the FCC $9 billion USD.
This will make them the only carrier with continuous 4G coverage. Another item of note centers on the recent tests in Boston and Seattle. Haller said that recent tests showed a downstream rate of 10-12Mb/s and an upstream of 3Mb/s (Mega-bits per-second). Latency on the 4G network dropped from 125ms to around 20ms. This is a considerable speed boost over 3G standards for the company. While LTE is a mobile development, as the first series of chips will see a majority of life in Verizon handsets, it will work just as well with wired Internet standards, Haller remarked.
While the investment in the 700MHz spectrum and performance improvements are a good example of how far Verizon is willing to go, there has to be something in return. As it turns out, LTE is good more a lot more than just handheld devices.
During the call, there was a discussion about plans, which include the various other uses for the LTE chips. For example, appliances that use the chips to download content updates or firmware updates. Another use would be portable gaming devices that use true networking, such as playing a game on the PSP in Indianapolis against a person in New York.
The cost of the LTE chips is not set in stone, but Haller did say that as the LTE chips become a standard, the costs will go down. However, the trick is getting companies and manufacturers to sign on to the idea. Verizon has been encouraging vendors and developers to work with them on LTE-based implementations, going so far as to help with prototyping.
This massive undertaking with LTE will also see a stronger carrier presence, Haller said. The slide below gives an overview of some of the carriers mentioned.
Verizon has set a deadline, 2013, as the year when 4G will be complete and rolled out to their entire footprint. If they make this deadline, and odds are they will, they will have an even larger foothold on the mobile market. If the added services and features take off, then they stand to make back a good deal of their initial investments.
However, if there are serious glitches with the 4G network, similar to the ones AT&T faced in the beginning of their own 3G network, and the limited areas where 3G mobile broadband is available, then they will face an uphill battle with the consumer.
Verizon’s 4G will roll out sometime next year. We’ll have to wait until then for serious performance tests and a final decision on if the investment will payoff sooner rather than later.
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