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Verizon 4G LTE Tests Planned For Seattle, Boston
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."
I'm guessing they chose Seattle to test how the network does in the rain.
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.
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"
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 given us a September date and have insisted the charge will be $600-700.
They have received packages for us and not notified us (the SAN calls in defective drives and sometimes HP's system doesn't notify us. We are currently going through the nightmare of migrating off ISEE to their new system which requires at least 2 dedicated blades -- which can't be VM's -- but that's another story).
We asked for a sister colo in Atlanta to have a seamless private connection with the Miami Verizon colo. They had no idea what we were talking about and said there was no way it could be done, and they quoted us significantly HIGHER prices for the same bandwidth for this backup site.
The racks at our Verizon datacenter are so close to their doors that the blade servers can't use their attachment for USB2 connectors (they stick out the front of the blades). There's little room for routing cables properly inside a fully populated cabinet because the door offset is so small.
I hope the phone company end of it performs better than the telco/computing end of it but I'm not holding my breath.
Am I right?
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.
Camping on quad since 1996.
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.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
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.
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.
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.
this is my sig
Wow, and I thought my 28.8kpbs dial-up modem was slow...
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]
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
Now the real fun begins.
"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 with the iPhone. Sure, their agreement to be able to sell directly (even if tied to AT&T) is much needed in the US. But I really don't think "Exclusivity arrangements" matter at all to phone design and innovation. If anything, they hurt phone design and innovation because it's the carriers/operators who tell us what features you the user can and can't have on the phone. For innovation, we need to cut the ties between being a carrier and forcing phone choice with contracts.
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. For others, things will inevitably become worse. If your cell contract is up about the time 4G networks are going in, then you'd be well advised to test out a new handset to make sure it works in all of the areas you need it to. Just because a 3G phone works fine doesn't mean a 4G one will.
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