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Wireless Networking Communications Hardware

Verizon 4G LTE Tests Planned For Seattle, Boston 46

Posted by kdawson from the finally-catching-up-to-802.11b dept.
suraj.sun writes "Verizon will kick off tests of its LTE network in Seattle and Boston later this year, and is 'working on a commercial launch of LTE service in up to 30 markets next year. LTE is Verizon's next-generation, '4G' network, which will supplement and eventually replace its existing CDMA network and provide average data speeds between 8-12 Mbps. Their ultimate goal is to cover 100 million 'points of presence' nationwide by the end of 2013."
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Verizon 4G LTE Tests Planned For Seattle, Boston More

Verizon 4G LTE Tests Planned For Seattle, Boston

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  • I'm guessing they chose Seattle to test how the network does in the rain.

  • Canada getting 21bps (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here in Canada, we are tagged for getting HSPA+ with 21Mbps speeds:

    http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1555076

    Starting in August in Toronto, and spreading to other cities after that. I don't know that those Verizon speeds discussed are actually 4G speeds.

    • Re:Canada getting 21bps (Score:5, Informative)

      by balbeir ( 557475 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @12:29AM (#28862609)
      I doubt that 21Mbs will be the average speed. They are saying "up-to"

      LTE is the 4G successor of HSPA+ so you're not really getting anything state of the art up there in the north. It's more like a squeezed 3.5G lemon

      Verizon is advertising 8-12 average speed. LTE is in theory capable of doing 150Mbs

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Verizon is advertising 8-12 average speed. LTE is in theory capable of doing 150Mbs

        Have they upgraded the network as well?

        It doesn't matter if you're connected to the tower at 100Gb/s if the tower is only connected by a single T-1.

        Right now, even 3G is saturating what little pipe they have available to the tower.

        • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No, Verizon utilizes a fiber backbone for all sites. So it is all Gig-E.

        • I was talking to a Verizon rep about this the other day. He said they will do tower to tower over the LTE network until it hits one with a fiber connection, at least in the beginning. But yes, to really see these speeds, you would need fiber not copper to the towers.

    • And unless the CRTC grows a backbone and changes something, you will get 9Mbps to Rogers premium services, 4Mbps to external websites, and 128kbps for anything p2p. And that's if you are lucky.

      http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4205/125/ [michaelgeist.ca]

  • LTE is known as 3.9G everywhere else in the world.

    But hey, we're just dumb Americans.

    I think Marie Antoinette encapsulated the American telecom business attitude in the incorrectly attributed quote, "Let them eat crumbs"

    • >LTE is known as 3.9G everywhere else in the world.

      Is it? I never heard that term, only 3.5G for HSPA.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ThrowAwaySociety ( 1351793 )

      LTE is known as 3.9G everywhere else in the world.

      What idiots. Everyone knows it's really 3.8642 G.

      Seriously, who comes up with these numbers?

  • Perhaps others have better results from them, but we are in a Verizon colo and have seen firsthand the inefficiency and general bungling of routine items.

    We needed more power for our new SAN and blade cabinet... took them MONTHS. They bickered back and forth over what was needed (we gave them the specs at their insistence and they kept arguing between departments about what was needed).

    Recently we asked them to move our T-1's and 8 copper lines from one cabinet to the adjacent cabinet. They've tentatively

    • Re:Hmmm better think about switching to Verizon... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      but we are in a Verizon colo

      Your first problem. Take this as a lesson for your next job. Carrier neutral facilities are nice because they are not owned by the crappy carriers. You can find a ton of these facilities in Atlanta.

      Also, I don't think it is fair to compare the datacenter activities with the wireless activities. Inside Verizon, these are definitely two totally different business units.

    • Can't be as bad as broadstripe.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Glendale2x ( 210533 )

      The telco side of Verizon gave me an OC-12 that I didn't order at no charge, so they aren't completely bad. YMMV. On the other hand, I have an OC-12 that I'm not really using if anyone wants to colo with me. ;)

      Sounds like it's time for you to find a colo that doesn't jerk you around. There's plenty around. Go carrier neutral or pick a smaller shop that has more of a focus on customer service because they actually value your business.

  • We are all united in our skepticism, due both to our superior technical insights and our even more sophisticated business acumen. In fact, we all think this is just horrible, because Verizon is a big evil company, so we just know they'll only be making life even more horrible for us by having this service. And in some way it also reflects badly on the government.

    Am I right?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Son of Byrne ( 1458629 )
      Well, close, but I bet you didn't realize that the RIAA is responsible for a lot of the evil plots that are hatched because of the unnatural alliance between the major cell carriers and the large record producers (Big Telco and Big Recording...now it's musical!)...
      meh...it's late.

  • Latency? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @12:28AM (#28862607) Journal

    Connection speed is almost always rated in Mbps - but that's only half the equation. What about latency?

    I have a cellular wireless card that works well enough to enable the 'digital nomad' lifestyle mentioned earlier today, but to say that it's a joy to have latency that bounces between 150ms and 1500ms is taking sarcasm to its extreme.

    More than the bandwidth, I want to know if the sub-50 ms ping times I see on a DSL or other 'land line' are going to be likely? Seems lame that transmitting a packetized radio signal for about 2 miles introduces more latency than the other 3,000 miles over fiber optics.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by EtaCarinae ( 1149927 )
      Latency can get below 5 ms under good radio conditions. LTE as well as older standards (W-CDMA etc) has retransmission on top of error correction. LTE uses a rather cool retransmission strategy. Search HARQ. Retransmissions can of course ruin ping times, but even this has been improved in LTE since decisions are being made closer to the antenna in the E-NodeB.

      What kind of connection, firewalling and shaping the operator has to the internet is then another matter...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Hammer ( 14284 )

      Israeli students proved that some time ago. (cant find the article :-( ) They strapped high volume backup tapes to carrier pigeons and got some kind of record bandwidth. Not so good latency though :-)

  • So What About Handsets And Cards? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @12:34AM (#28862633)

    If Verizon is getting ready to build a partial network to do testing, where does this put the development and production of the necessary chipsets?

    The last I heard, the LTE chipsets necessary for high-power devices (laptop cards, etc) were not expected before late 2010. Chipsets for low-power devices (phones) were a couple of years farther out - 2012 or later. Has this changed, or is this still the right timetable?

    It's cool that Verizon is building a LTE network, but if we're years away from having devices that can use it, I guess I don't see the point of it or why everyone is so excited.

    • Re:So What About Handsets And Cards? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @12:45AM (#28862679)

      Would you say they are putting the cart before the horse?

      I think they are simply solving the chicken and egg problem.

      • No, not at all. Clearly you need a LTE network to test on. Rather I'm commenting on what seems to be the irrational exuberance around the internet for LTE. Half the internet is convinced that Apple is going to drop AT&T for Verizon LTE in 2010 for example, which is silly. Many people (users and /. techies alike) seem to be looking at LTE as if it's going to shake up the entire cellular industry real soon now (TM), and that's not the case. Even those of us on the bleeding edge are going to be using 3G ph

  • Utility (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sonicmerlin ( 1505111 )
    This will only be useful if they do something about those horrible 5 gig caps. HIgher speeds entices people to do more bandwidth intensive activities on their iPhones. It would also be nice if the FCC punished AT&T and Verizon for charging HUGE markups on their special access lines, raising the price of wireless services for everyone in the US.

  • 4G (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @01:46AM (#28862957)

    8-12 mbit is not 4G.

    By definition, the objective of 4G is to support:

    + A nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s while the client physically moves at high speeds relative to the station, and 1 Gbit/s while client and station are in relatively fixed positions as defined by the ITU-R,[3]
    + A data rate of at least 100 Mbit/s between any two points in the world,[3]

    • Re:4G (Score:5, Informative)

      by Hammer ( 14284 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @02:41AM (#28863253) Journal

      This is a correct definition.
      Furthermore LTE is not expected to be 4G That is in the realm of LTE-Advanced

      And I guess that this is only to act as some sort of alpha test

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Björn ( 4836 ) *

        Furthermore LTE is not expected to be 4G That is in the realm of LTE-Advanced

        Yes, but LTE Advanced might turn out to be just a software upgrade of the LTE networks.

  • LTE aka Long Term Evolution is a stepping stone between 3G and 4G.

    Claiming anything else is marketing.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution [wikipedia.org]

  • "Exclusivity arrangements ... do promote competition and innovation in device development and design, so our take here is that this approach is fair to all sides," Strigl said. "When you think about what Apple has done in bringing the iPhone to the marketplace, it truly has accelerated innovation."

    I found this paragraph interesting. As someone who works for a device/phone manufacturer, I'd say that "Exclusivity arrangements" harm the industry as a whole. Sure, Apple has kicked the industry into motion wit

  • Let's not forget that regular cellular calls will travel over this network too. Verizon's new LTE networks will require a different type of architecture - much more of a hub and spoke topology. They also require more, not less, cell sites. The aim is to actually decrease the coverage of each site but install many more sites to make up for it. Therefore, what's going to end up happening is you're going to get different coverage than what you have now. For some people, things will inevitably improve. Fo

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