The VO | The IPhone Debate Flanked by 4G (LTE)

The IPhone Debate Flanked by 4G (LTE)

Verizon has just completed the first LTE 4G data calls in Boston and Dallas.

Many of you who know me, know I love me some cell phones. I have somewhat of a fascination with wireless technologies, in general, in part due to my formal product design education. However, aside from appreciating aesthetics, I have learned the the marriage of engineering is as important to design as is in the automobile industry. In the automobile industry, when you see something new and unique, it’s because the proportions underneath the car have been modified and reoriented underneath the beautiful skin designers work hard on outside of it. It really doesn’t work any other way (case in point, the Porsche Cayman). Once the engineers re-create and reorient the relationships of the inner workings of the car, suddenly, something new and unique visually can happen.

The same holds true for cell phones. Could this be the spark?

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Verizon Wireless today completed its first successful Long Term Evolution (LTE) fourth generation (4G) data call in Boston based on the 3GPP Release 8 standard; the company also announced today that it had earlier completed the first LTE 4G data call based on the 3GPP Release 8 standard in Seattle. The successful data calls involved streaming video, file uploads and downloads, and Web browsing. Significantly, Verizon Wireless has successfully made data calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to enable voice transmissions over the LTE 4G network.

In collaboration with its network infrastructure providers, the wireless leader’s successful completion of the data calls over its 700 MHz spectrum in Boston and Seattle marks the next step in its deployment for building its LTE 4G wireless network, which is being built on the 3GPP Release 8 standard. In both locations, the data calls were executed on commercial infrastructure platforms.

This puts a new spin on what Verizon can offer me in the future. I have said that I wanted an Iphone on Verizon (and still do), but I am now thinking I might be missing the boat on what 4G has to offer. Speaking to Verizon about this technology, it appears that VZW will switch the platform of this back to a GSM platform (which seems to be winning in the GSM-CDMA battle). This opens up wide opportunities for both phones and content. For example, I would really like to get a phone from Japan, or Korea that offers OLEM screen display. Apple has really taken a backseat on technology, and if VZW fills the gap with this platform and phones, I am actually encouraged to stay.

It would be pretty rad to have a phone that is OLEM, and one that I can pretty much stream data to, on demand. I guess we’ll get our expert opinions on what this development means from dwex (our resident techie), but I, for one, see a little glimmer of hope for VZW taking a step toward new technology. What do you guys think?

Would it be premature to jump to At&T, if this is what the future holds?

Comments:

4G is years away, MW. “First call” is an interesting proof of technology, but it’s a long, long way from commercial-ready. Take a look at the rocky road of the other 4G technology, WiMAX, which is what I used to be working on. That press release is major hype. There’s nothing “significant” about a VoIP call.

WiMAX has multi-billion-dollar backing from Clearwire, Sprint, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Google It’s taking years to roll it out. LTE will equally take years.

Is 4G going to replace 3G? You betcha. But there won’t be ubiquitous coverage on 4G networks for at least another 3-4 years at best. If you’re lucky enough to live in a launch metropolitan area it’s definitely working; WiMAX has been getting rave reviews in Baltimore and Portland (the two Clearwire launch markets), and the reviews are good from some of the other markets its rolling out in.

Speaking to Verizon about this technology, it appears that VZW will switch the platform of this back to a GSM platform (which seems to be winning in the GSM-CDMA battle).

This is wrong. Verizon’s network will be CDMA + EV-DO + LTE. They aren’t replacing CDMA with GSM and EV-DO with HSPA; doing so would require them to be building out three networks simultaneously, which they absolutely are not doing. LTE is a new, incompatible, network from the GSM standards body. At some point in the future, a decade or more from now, you might see 4G interoperability. But then again, most of Asia has been building out WiMAX for the last several years, and Clearwire is way ahead in building out their WiMAX network in the US.

Posted by dwex on 08/18/09 at 07:55 PM from

Thanks for the clarification. This is why I asked the question again to you, instead of taking a 20yr. old kid’s opinion at face value on the matter. 4G seems very promising, but I don’t know if I should be loyal to VZW if they are really that far out. I am very excited by the idea of OLEM in a cell phone format, and this seems like the perfect platform to deliver it to the public.

I’ll look into WiMax. Never heard of it before you mentioned it.

Posted by Manwhore on 08/18/09 at 08:11 PM from

Cool post. I’ve heard of Clearwire for many years—they’ve seemed to have a large presence in the inland northwest markets (Idaho, Montana, etc.). The speed and mobility of the service provides very clear advantages over traditional broadband service. It makes total sense to leverage that broadband capability to support mobile devices, including cell phones. As long as they can keep up with our ever-growing appetite for bandwidth, WiMax will be a major factor in the years to come.

For what it’s worth, I’m a long-time loyal Sprint customer and have been very happy with their service improvements, including the EVDO network speed

Posted by zoomzoom on 08/18/09 at 09:34 PM from

Clearwire is yet another venture from Craig McCaw, the guy who turned cellular into an actual viable business after AT&T was convinced by McKinsey consultants that there was no money to be made and they sold of the intellectual property. They have been around for quite a while in your neck of the woods, zoomzoom. Their headquarters is in Kirkland, WA. For a number of years they have provided fixed (not mobile) wireless broadband service, initially serving more rural areas and then moving into more populated areas as a DSL/cable alternative. They had a lot of backing from Intel and Motorola, using a “pre-WiMAX” technology (based on an earlier rev of the standard that became WiMAX.

Between the two of them, Sprint and Clearwire held licenses to almost all of the available 2.5GHz spectrum. Both bet on Mobile WiMAX as the best technology to provide mobile broadband; at the time, LTE was a gleam in various peoples’ eyes. These two initiatives merged in the “new Clearwire” last year, with 3.2 BILLION $$ in investment from the major players I mentioned above. They are rolling out WiMAX in a bunch of markets now, as well as figuring out how to migrate their older “pre-WiMAX” customers onto the new platform.

Manwhore, I don’t think there’s going to be any 4G in your neck of the woods until 2010 at the earliest, from either the WiMAX or LTE camps. If you want 4G go to South Korea; the entire country has been up on Wibro (another pre-WiMAX technology based on earlier specifications) for years, and may have moved to WiMAX by now (I don’t recall whether they were planning to complete in 2009 or 2010).

Posted by dwex on 08/19/09 at 05:23 AM from

Since I work from home, I’ve never had much need for internet on my phone since it’s usually in front of me. In fact, I also have a verizon wireless card for those times when I’ve taken my laptop on a trip. Consequently, I am the laughing stock of my friends for being such a geek, yet still talking on one of these: