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."
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
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]
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...