Right this minute. Sure. By June of 2011 errr no.
http://www.fiercewireless.com/europ...rollout-plan-huge-2g-network-boost/2010-07-07
There are numerous places that are currently in the "novelty test market" phase. So yeah they are not past it yet. However, they are extremely unlikely to sit stuck in those phases for another 12 months.
apps ? eh? Other than the thousands that currently exist ? You do not need a new app classification for 4G network. heck all they primarily give you is the same internet speed many have at home. Did people need new apps for broaband? No! You got to stop looking at the "updating" animation in your web browser among other things. Merely running the old pokey ones faster is sufficient to add value.
Likewise if users keep they bandwidth usage roughtly constant also get rid of congestion problems. Egregious bandwidth hog apps are actually bad in the aggregate view. They tend to screw up networks.
LTE is 3G (3.9). That is maxing out your 3G network before going to 4G.
Look Verizon could bump their CMDA/EV-DO network up to SVDO also before later decomissioning them. It is a matter of proirities though. AT&T just recently sank tons of money into their 3.5 ugrades so makes sense to push those slightly before bumping to 3.9. Verizon had mainly a software delployment upgrade to go to EV-DO A. So they haven't recently burnt tons of cash into infrastructure so they are do. There is extremely little advantage for them to nickel and dime another upgrade. This way they will be done in two years while ATT is screwing around with LTE deployments.
That means Verizon will be set up to jump on real 4G when it comes time while ATT is still recovering from their last round of hardware upgrades.
But they already did that 12 months ago. It is not like Verizon LTE deployment has been on hold for last two years. They finished the first two test deployments last year.
http://news.vzw.com/news/2009/08/pr2009-08-14f.html
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Successfully-Tests-LTE-In-Boston-Seattle-103962
How many years you think they are going to spend testing ? Personally, I think one is plenty. Not sure what going to find in year 2 that didn't find in year 1 if had a decent test plan.
They have already slipped on schedule several times. 2-3 years ago LTE was suppose come early-mid 2010. then mid 2010 ... now late 2010 ( which effectively is December ... pratically 2011 ). They are already in the overdue deadlines zone. Verizon has pushed out the date to get a bigger launch coverage number. 100 million is about 1/3 of the US population. That is certainly a big enough number to launch into.
Plus they have done things like drop LTE coverage into major airport areas where the associated city itself doesn't officially have coverage. It isn't just "number of people" that is important. It also is being where the users are when they need high value added network boost. Initally the bleeding edge phones are going to be expensive which means more professionals are going to have them.
), and I have 3 months before I am eligable to be free of AT&T's early termination fee. I'm going to try to hold out for the Verizon iPhone hopefully early next year, as I have been extremely dissatisfied with the AT&T service in downtown Atlanta in terms of dropped calls, coverage, and voice quality (voices fade in and out in about 25% of my calls). When I lived in Los Angeles I didn't have any of these issues, AT&T's voice and data were just as good as Verizon, but here in Atlanta it is a very different story.
