Verizon switching to UMTS based LTE for their next generation network, 100 megabits down
By Stefan Constantinescu on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 2:06 PM PST In Verizon, Vodafone
The Gods, can you hear them singing? Verizon (NYSE: VZ) choose not to go with EVDO revision C for their next generation network, they are instead going with the GSM Association’s standard currently known as 3G LTE (Long Term Evolution)! Much of this is due to the fact that their big brother Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) will be implementing the same technology over seas and they want to have a common platform. Expect this network to be live in 3 – 4 years. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about LTE:
- Download rates of 100 Mbit/s, and upload rates of 50 Mbit/s for every 20 MHz of spectrum
- Sub-5ms latency for small IP packets
- Optimal cell size of 5 km, 30 km sizes with reasonable performance, and up to 100 km cell sizes supported with acceptable performance
Verizon based devices with a SIM card? Hell has truly frozen over and boy oh boy am I glad about this change. With Sprint (NYSE: S) going to WiMAX, Verizon going with LTE, what other radical decisions will American operators make in the upcoming years?
[Via: Phone Scoop, RCR Wireless News]
Wow, either my RSS reader is set to April 1st or I just entered the twilight zone!
i know exactly how you feel
OMG…This would be like an end of War, or a championship for Chicago Cubs, or Osama Bean saying “Let there be peace and all muslims and christians will live in harmony from now on” or George Bush giving up his presidency, or the whole Texas going democracy…you get the idea…
Maciek
http://www.symbiosis60.com
Hi Into Mobile blog and readers
About time too… The CDMA camp has been losing in the big battle (its Sony vs VHS all over) and in the past few years several of the biggest CDMA carriers in the world have already started to migrate from CDMA to GSM, including the largest or second largest carrier in in Mexico, Australia, India and South Korea. There isn’t one GSM operator abandoning its technology in favor of CDMA evolution path.
Verizon/Vodafone is a massively stupid extension of the wrong mix of technologies. Vodafone has very publically been pushing for Verizon to abandon the CDMA camp early – when it became obvious that the eventual winner of this “Betamax vs VHS” battle was clearly going to be GSM – today 75% of all global subscribers are on GSM, CDMA is one of four other digital technologies splitting the last quarter. GSM is active in almost every country, you won’t find CDMA in any Western European countries, almost no African countries, and half of Asian countries.
But Verizon management remained stubborn for whatever bizarre reason. They saw the writing on the wall. Other carriers, over 15 carriers in the world have already started the migration from CDMA to GSM – who mostly didn’t have any “GSM owner” like a Vodafone to push them onto the GSM path. It just makes sense as the costs of the network elements are cheaper due to economies of scale, and the variety of handsets and costs of handsets are massively better in GSM than CDMA…
Yes, its long overdue for Verizon to do this.
Tomi T Ahonen
5-time bestselling author on mobile telecoms
lecturing on 3G mobile at Oxford University
http://www.tomiahonen.com
Hey Tomi! What do you have to say about WiMAX? Curious to hear your thoughts on that subject. You rarely mention it on your blog.
That mean unlocked iPhones for Verizon
then if verizon gets sim cards does that mean you will be able to use other phone services on their phones
Their changing not because the technology is better but it is cheaper. The CDMA phones are very expensive compared to the GSM phone’s.
A person really doesn’t think about the cost of the phone being a deciding factor but 25 bucks more a unit times 50 million subs or more is a lot of money. Today’s customers have been taught to change phones at least once a year and in some cases even more than that, a new revision is out, etc. and certainly worth the money.
The fact of the matter is, eighty per cent of the people still only make and receive calls but their paying for the other twenty per cent of the text and data users functions.
The large carriers have learn that there is more money to be made from the units than the actual service they sell.
Advertise a new device and you can sell it. Even tho the uses are about the same as the one you have and you can do this by rearranging the buttons, changing the colors, shape and screen designs, the public will eat it up, so if you have a chance to make an extra 25 bucks a unit, why not.