Verizon's LTE vendor partners to be revealed at MWC
By Ross Miller 
posted Feb 10th 2009 6:35PM
posted Feb 10th 2009 6:35PM
Looks like Verizon's LTE (Long Term Evolution) service might be on track to launch this year, after all. Speaking at a Digital Broadband Migration event at the University of Colorado at Boulder, executive VP and CTO Richard Lynch said the company's in the final stages of selecting vendor partners, and they'll be announced at next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. He also reiterated that service, which they've been trialing in conjunction with Vodafone, will co-exist with its current 3G platform. He said all vendors have been told that the they need to be and running this year. Hey fellas, let's not let Lynch down here.
wait explain the concept of vendors to me...
Network Infrastructure vendors (the base stations): Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia/Siemens, Fujitsu, et. al.
whats LTE? is it 4G?
what will it offer that 3G cannot? will we get TV through the phone?
In the strictest sense it is "3.9G" according to the folks at 3GPP. 4G is yet to be defined.
3.9G is LTE or "Release 8".
mobile TV uses a completely different radio technology that runs alongside traditional cellular service and is already available in most countries from one or more carriers...
LTE is 4G, and will provide faster data rates, lower latency, and support more users per tower..
LTE is potentially a 4G standard, I believe (mainly because 4G has yet to be properly ratified). It will offer substantially higher bandwidths to the devices and will be packet-switched, likely using IPv6 (as IPv4 will probably be very close to exhaustion at the point of deployment). You may be able to get TV to the phone, if your phone and carrier support it. A current example, running on a 3G network is Verizon's VCast.
A vendor, Wildman, to Verizon in this case is the people making the phones. RIM (Blackberries), Motorola, LG, etc.
Vendors are also, the people making the radios, and the network behind them.
Wikipedia:
The standard includes:
-Peak download rates of 326.4 Mbit/s for 4x4 antennas, 172.8 Mbit/s for 2x2 antennas for every 20 MHz of spectrum.
-Peak upload rates of 86.4 Mbit/s for every 20 MHz of spectrum.
-5 different terminal classes have been defined from a voice centric class up to a high end terminal that supports the peak data rates. All terminal will be able to process 20 MHz bandwidth.
-At least 200 active users in every 5 MHz cell. (i.e., 200 active data clients)
-Sub-5ms latency for small IP packets
A characteristic of so-called "4G" networks such as LTE is that they are fundamentally based upon TCP/IP, the core protocol of the Internet, with higher level services such as voice, video, and messaging, built on top of this. In 2004, the 3GPP proposed this as the future of UMTS and began feasibility studies into the so-called All IP Network (AIPN.) These proposals, which included recommendations in 2005 for 3GPP Release 7[5] (though some aspects were in releases as early as 4[6]), form the basis of the effort to build the higher level protocols of evolved UMTS. The LTE part of this effort is called the 3GPP System Architecture Evolution.
Nice stats, but the LTE peak rates mentioned are for two 20MHz BW paired channels. Verizon's purchase last year in the 700MHz auction was for two 11MHz channels. Not to mention that peak rates really mean that you're the only one in a single cell, next to the antenna, and not moving at all.
Verizon is requiring only 10MHz bandwidth for their handset suppliers. At least for the trials.
"all vendors have been told that the they need to be and running this year"
Definitely, I "need to be and running this year" too
Engadget editors have been slacking!
sPellCHeck??
Yeah the grammar on this article is horrible!
Interesting how they say it will run along side their current 3g platform, but how will that work since Verizon's LTE will be GSM and their current 3G is CDMA?
3G in the Verizon sense is "EV-DO". 3G in the AT&T/T-Mobile sense is WCDMA
3G = EV-DO (3GPP2 - www.3gpp2.org )
3G = WCDMA (3GPP - www.3gpp.org )
I've heard that Chinese Vendor Huawei will be the one with the largest share, due to their already strong relationship with Vodafone in Europe - breaking thru in American market big time though.
Will it mean cheaper prices to us, I hope, but hard to see...
Huawei's footprint in Vodafone is not that large in Europe, Nokia Siemens and Ericsson have the lion's share.
Do I smell astroturfing?
Qualcomm
Good luck....all handsets will be crippled (as the case is right now with VZ) with a scaled down firmware prohibiting Bluetooth OBEX, file and all other profiles in order to make sure the customer will stick with their internet offering for all purchases etc. I hope I'm wrong. Another GSM entrant into the US market would be a blessing.
Yeah, it was totally annoying that Verizon used to do that. So glad they're not anymore.
I don't necessarily think that's true. Blocking features is really more a carrier's choice, it doesn't really correlate with the radio speeds or underlying technology. VZW didn't decide to handicap handsets ONLY after rolling out Ev-DO... Hell, I vaguely remember them saying that they were planning to move away from their capping ways a while back (though I will believe it when I see it). Anyways, if the same spread of carriers is around when LTE is rolled out, I don't think we will see much of a shift in their policies.
Anything that means Verizon no longer has the power to dictate what phones do and don't run on their network is a GOOD thing.
Expect Huawei and Ericsson to get most of Verizon's business.
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Nokia-Siemens are likley for AT&T.
I'm a little bit confused about LTE. Will CALLS be possible on LTE or is it only for data? I thought the choice to go LTE instead of UWB was because Verizon was going to be going full GSM in the future. Basically what I'm asking is: Once LTE is fully deployed, will Verizon end it's CDMA service and become a GSM carrier or will it be a CDMA voice/GSM data hybrid?
LTE can make calls, but in Verizon's case, they already have a fully setup CDMA network in place that can handle the calls with no problem. I don't think they'll bother with voice calls on LTE until their LTE network is deployed nationwide.
It's more than that- on LTE, voice IS data, all voice will be replaced by VOIP, which is far more cost-effective and will save the carriers bundles of money in the long run.
Verizon will never be introducing 2G or 3G GSM/UMTS. Don't get your hopes up thinking your unlocked 3G iPhone will ever work on the VZW network... the older networks will remain CDMA. VZW will probably be pushing dual mode CDMA/GSM-LTE handsets at first as the LTE network gets rolled out- but in the long run, with all that juicy 700 Mhz spectrum, LTE should have sufficient coverage to stand on its own. CDMA/GSM dual-mode handsets will probably still be locked down due to the CDMA component, it's only once LTE coverage becomes good enough that VZW customers will really start to be able to use unlocked handsets and such.
Well, LTE will use VOIP, but you have to switch back to voice once you leave an LTE cell and there's only a CDMA cell available. That process is pretty complicated, and will need more time to be completed. So, I guess it'd be more accurate to say CDMA voice / LTE data for now, but eventually it'll be LTE voice and data.
Vodafone is testing equipment from Huawei, Motorola, and Nokia Siemens.
Verizon is testing gear from Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Nortel.
I'm glad I bought the Samsung SCH-i760 last week on eBay. I know that sounds backwards, but it makes more sense than it sounds. I didn't have to sign any contract, so when devices and LTE network is rolled out, I can get a new phone cheap then. Besides, the phone I bought I got for $150, which isn't bad for that phone without a contract.