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."

Comments

Latency?

[mcrbids]

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:Canada getting 21bps

[balbeir]

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:So What About Handsets And Cards?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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

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

4G

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Hammer]

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:Utility

[JPortal]

I think that's the point. They impose caps so that bandwidth isn't saturated (AT&T, anyone?) and if they can accommodate more capacity at higher speeds, they can safely raise the caps too. That's (part of) why AT&T is scrambling to upgrade its networks.