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Mar. 12, 2010

Tony G. Melone, CTO at Verizon Wireless says that the company will offer wireless handsets with 4G capability within 3 to 6 months after it launches its commercial 4G network slated in July.

Melone was quick to point out that this is a little over six months sooner than Verizon had previously said back in April 2009.

The wireless carrier is also expected to start launching commercial deployments around mid-June as it finishes testing in cities like Boston and Seattle, added Melone.

Usually, when a new generation of mobile network is launched, the very first devices to use the new network are USB air cards that plug into laptops to provide faster Web access. Mobile phones and smartphones with the new technology embedded usually show up in the market about a year or so later. That's in most cases anyway.

But at the GSMA's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain a few weeks ago, Dick Lynch, an executive vice president for Verizon Communications, said that its wireless division is on track to launch its service in 25 to 30 large markets throughout the United States by the end of this year.

Verizon Wireless, which is using a technology called LTE (long term evolution) is actually in Phase 4 of its technology development.

The company is building its new 4G wireless network using spectrum it bought in the 700MHz auction from the FCC back in 2008.

Since it will probably take a few months to cover Verizon Wireless' entire network topology with its new 4G service, the first mobile wireless handsets will have two chips in them. An LTE chip will allow the mobile device to access the new 4G network where it's available, and another chip using CDMA technology will provide access on Verizon's 3G network when 4G service isn't available.

The idea makes sense some wireless industry analysts are saying. Suppliers will eventually create an integrated chip that will handle both 3G and 4G technologies, hopefully before year end.

However, it looks like the development cycle on LTE handset technology is happening faster than what was previously believed. So-called air cards will still be introduced to the market first, but mobile phones with LTE technology already embedded in them will follow more quickly than they usually do.

At Mobile World Congress, executives from the European carrier Orange as well as from equipment maker Ericsson said LTE technology handsets will be introduced sooner than anyone had anticipated back in 2009.

Verizon executives say it's still too early to tell when the devices will come to market or even which manufacturers will make the mobile phones and which operating systems will be used.

Bill Stone, executive director of network strategy for Verizon Wireless said "we haven't tested any handsets as of yet. We expect the initial phones will include CDMA. And as we've said before, many of the components to bring LTE to market are moving along much more quickly than we had initially hoped, and that's a good thing."

Another reason the first LTE handsets will need two chipsets is because voice traffic will continue to use the existing CDMA cellular network, while the data traffic will use LTE only.

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Source: Verizon Wireless.