Verizon's LTE rollout is imminent, computers updated for 4G SIM cards

We just got some alleged (but very convincing) internal documents on Verizon's 4G plans, and it's mostly stuff we've already heard -- 5-12Mbps down, aircards before smartphones, and plans to roll out in 30 cities in 2010. That said, documents dated this week show the company's still on track to serve up 100 million connections by the end of the year, and a pair of independent tipsters have just sent us pics of Verizon computers ready and waiting for those precious LTE SIM cards. Furthermore, the docs also claim that the planned LTE isn't just fast, it's got a lag-destroying 30ms latency too, and fans of wider wireless computing can expect 4G tablets of some sort in 2011 as well. See all the goodies in our gallery below.

Verizon Wireless alleged internal 4G plans

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Setiri Posted Jul 18th 2010 8:13PM]

@marook Y'all are also tiny as hell compared to the U.S. It's way easier/cheaper to build a network to cover everyone in many other countries than the U.S. Therefore it's also easier/cheaper to upgrade whenever technology marches on. Look, it's not that cellular carriers in the U.S. are great by any means, I won't defend that. But to compare it unfairly is just disingenuous at best.

[maythetechbewithyou Posted Jul 18th 2010 4:52PM]

An LTE Droid phone and possibly LTE BlackBerry will be obvious additions to the Verizon lineup, but like most what I worry about is pricing. Tiered data is a non issue truly so long as an unlimited plan I available, but even if they don't what I do while mobile will not be download intensive so I won't really worry over it. Sounds great, can't wait until an LTE Droid comes out in 2011/2012.

[That guy 2 Posted Jul 18th 2010 5:59PM]

@maythetechbewithyou Droids suck jeez, but there will be either/both iPhone 4g, and/or an actually good android phone with 4g, but not a motorolla droid phone

[Shooter McGavin Posted Jul 18th 2010 8:27PM]

@That guy 2 The iPhail can't compare to a Droid, you're dumb.

[HDD Posted Jul 18th 2010 4:53PM]

Wonder if I can upgrade my VZW mifi.

[Valicore Posted Jul 18th 2010 5:01PM]

I just messed my pants at the idea of VZW having SIM cards.

[wardjj Posted Jul 18th 2010 5:16PM]

5-12Mbps? Here in the Netherlands the first test showed out 70-80Mbps!

[Antiapple Posted Jul 18th 2010 6:59PM]

@wardjj
that's a small country

[Hazdaz Posted Jul 18th 2010 7:44PM]

@Antiapple

Not this crap again... yea, it's a small country, but they also have a small population. There was a post about this weeks ago with the same claim that basically it's OK to excuse US cell speeds because we live in a large country that obviously would need more infrastructure to support it.

But that's all BS because we live in a very large country, but we also have a very large population with a large cell-phone acceptance by consumers that should easily be able to support the cost of that much larger network.

When it comes right down to it, Corporate Greed supersedes anything else - because Americans aren't used to high cell speeds, cell carriers do the absolute least they can get away with in terms of speeding up and supporting their network.

[bufbarnaby Posted Jul 18th 2010 5:56PM]

YES...Ultimate combo.
CDMA for best signal...LTE for DATA...win win !!!

[reas0n555 Posted Jul 18th 2010 6:24PM]

sim card on verizon,well if tmobile is done then sign me up

[hunterintustin Posted Jul 18th 2010 6:32PM]

I am surprised that nobody took notice on VZW claim that WiMax will not be "National". Sprint/Clearwire have the 2500Mhz band for the entire U.S.

If they deploy it nationwide is another question.

[hunterintustin Posted Jul 18th 2010 6:33PM]

Verizon still should answer the question: WHERE WILL LTE BE LAUNCHED?

[VAVA Mk 2 Posted Jul 18th 2010 6:39PM]

Flash enabled phones and 4G speeds on multiple carriers...I totally bet the porn industry is excited about a new way for us to see....stuff....seriously though 4G on multiple carriers is awesome. More choice and competition = consumer win

[unf2011 Posted Jul 18th 2010 6:47PM]

Am I the only person who would much rather them stregthen the 3g networks before starting a new one? All the companies, not just Verizon. There are still places that don't have 3g access.

[yyandrew Posted Jul 18th 2010 7:31PM]

Oh man, now I'm wondering if I should just stay with Verizon ... hopefully they'll get some sweet devices and that'll entice me to stay. As of now, I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the selections

[Hazdaz Posted Jul 18th 2010 7:38PM]

This is great and all, but there is no chance in hell that I am willing to pay a premium for LTE speeds. Screw that - these cell phone contracts are way the hell too expensive already. US consumers are getting the shaft.

If Verizon tries pulling the same thing that Sprint is doing with the EVO and add a $10/mo surcharge, then they can do pound sand... the speed would be great, but not at that price.

Especially so after someone tested the Droid X versus the EVO (at 4G), and of course the EVO won, but not by a ridiculous amount when downloading webpages.

[Tipsofme Posted Jul 18th 2010 8:06PM]

http://www.tmonews.com/2010/07/cnet-tests-carrier-data-speeds-in-nyc-t-mobile-kills-the-competition/

I have tmo and just took a trip from Dallas to sanfran then from the to la. I had signal the entire time. Not sure if you all have checked in the year or two but tmo isn't what it use to be and now I'm paying way less than people using sprint or AT&T and my data is faster than both. Oh and all 3g phones get faster speed from hspa+ and the new phones that will support hspa+ all the way up to 42mbps won't use 4g wimax with two or three hours of battery life.

[saddam3 Posted Jul 19th 2010 7:08PM]

@Tipsofme perseption sometimes need time to catch up to realism. I had tmble. There a good company but that's it. No extras. I mean they have no music store. No movie store. No roadside rescue. I enjoy all the pluses I get with sprint like upgrades every 12 months on my phne. N on the plans. Do they might have chaper plans. You also get less. I saw an add that said 2 lines on a family plan for 55 bucks at walmart underneath the tmble phnes. I was like shit. That's cheap. Then I looked at what the plan included n fuck who can do sum with 750 share minutes n hmm cuple hundred txt messages this days? Well even do they have hspa they dnt have the spectrum to keep those speeds. After you use an amnt of data they well slow down ur downloud n upload speeds. Might as well take ur arm n leg 2. Unltd is suppost to be unltd. Like sprint

[o0oo0oo Posted Jul 18th 2010 8:08PM]

I was told by my vzw rep that 4 markets in Florida will be turned on around the end of summer or during the fall. I was doing an ESN switch today and Verizons system had 4G stuff everywhere. 4G sim cards, 4G device activations, it was crazy.

[Sin City Posted Jul 18th 2010 8:33PM]

Read through the 4 pages of comments and no one mentioned the fact that Sprint/Clearwire is upgrading to WiMax 802.16 Enhanced by the end of the year? Research the stats for that. I'm not going to type more on it. I'm just laughing at the comments that are being made.

Sprint is still considering its options with regard to LTE (Long-Term Evolution), the 4G technology that most carriers around the world plan to deploy. Depending on which of their spectrum bands they used, Sprint and Clearwire could adopt either the TD (time-division) or the FD (frequency-division) variants of LTE, Rowley said. (Btw, that's the Vice President of 4G Todd Rowley) Anyway you put it, LTE is a go. They already working on contracts.

I'm out though. Continue, with the HSPA+ vs WiMax vs LTE arguments.

[ghobs91 Posted Jul 18th 2010 8:37PM]

cannot wait till verizon finally switches over to simcards, leaving only sprint left

[xsacha Posted Jul 18th 2010 11:17PM]

I have HSDPA (3.5G GSM) and get faster speeds (2MB/s sometimes) with lower latencies (22ms).
What's the deal USA?

[bernardino Posted Jul 18th 2010 11:21PM]

Did anyone else notice this? One the bottom of the 3rd image:
"At Launch, CDMA global roaming will be supported; GSM and LTE global roaming will be supported later."

Wait... What? GSM?

Does this mean that their phones will support both CDMA and GSM, like current "world phones" on Verizon do?

This doesn't seem likely to me. Why note that "GSM and LTE global roaming" will be supported later, when GSM global roaming is supported right now IF you have a world phone? Why not just say "LTE global roaming will be supported later" and leave GSM out of it?

Or does this mean that GSM will be rolled out along with LTE cross-country, perhaps allowing Verizon to shut off their CDMA service completely so that all Verizon phones are "world phones" (like AT&T, T-Mobile, etc).

I don't know if the latter is likely either, because I assumed that since LTE and GSM are different beasts, although related, that GSM support would not be inherent with an LTE roll-out. If GSM requires extra effort to roll out with LTE, then Verizon would be doing what their Canadian counterparts did: completely dumping CDMA for a GSM technology.

I hope it is the latter. Having CDMA stick around too long could result in Verizon being the "odd man out" carrier globally in some cases (ex. a country that runs GSM but has not upgraded to LTE yet).

Also, it'd reduce the number of wrinkles in the process of switching from one carrier to the other. No more having to buy a completely new phone to go from AT&T to Verizon and back to T-Mobile. These barriers only make it harder, and more expensive, for consumers to leave their current service provider. Getting rid of these barriers would increase competition thus improving innovation and lowering prices.

[milan03 Posted Jul 19th 2010 12:29AM]

Well, here in NYC on AT&T which didn't even roll out their HSPA+ service we get these speeds.
http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab17/milanyc/IMG_0183.png
http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab17/milanyc/IMG_0184.png

These speeds are taken with the device that actually utilizes HSUPA (iPhone 4), and note that currently att users nationwide are suffering severe hsupa issues.
But when it works it's great.

[anarfox Posted Jul 19th 2010 3:43AM]

12 Mbps? What's up with the mobile network speeds in the US? The LTE network in Sweden is capable of up to 45 Mbps and that's just the first stage. They're aiming for 80 Mbps.

[Smurf Posted Jul 19th 2010 11:43AM]

LTE has up to 5 times faster upload speed than my "top of the line" Time Warner cable connection. They won't give me more than 1mbit. I don't torrent, but I upload 720p60 video to my servers. Sell me a real internet connection! Damn you, Time Warner!

[sir1honda Posted Jul 20th 2010 2:00AM]

Good day to all,
I would like you to know that I'm super happy as I have a super fast connection provided by Tmobile now. I used speedtest.net in my old & dilapidated G1 and I got 6.5mbps then 2.6 uploads in Houston then when I tethered it in my netbook then use again the speedtest.net I got this http://www.speedtest.net/result/853126141.png ( 25.84 MBPS down - 1.54 MBPS up ) Its mind blowing,then my latency_ping are between 45-60 in my location-shadow creek ranch in pearland (a bit outside of downtown Houston) then 70-150 in other locations. I did the test between 9:30am-10:00am as many people starting to use the service as my clear if that time of usage will be horrible.
I have CLEAR now in the house that I'm paying for $40/month as I bought the modem,so no leasing fee for me just $40/month. That internet of mine hit the highest was 16mbps in early in the morning between (2am-5am) but before or after that time I will hit only 3-6mbps download then 800-900kbps upload unlike Tmobile who has 1mbps-3mbps upload.
I'm always travelling around Texas & I found out that Austin,Houston,Dallas & San Antonio has the highest download speed to compare to any cities when I compare in Westcoast & Eastcoast cities.
Then if ever they will make more fiber optic backhaul, they can minimize the latency problems others have now.I used to have that problem in my location but now its GONE.
I'm not the kind of person wasting time to bash any company but now I will because I was with AT&T and they are full of lies company as I had my iphone 3gs & my wife & we never seen more than 2mbps connection the whole of Texas or whenever I am in California or New York. All PEOPLE WHO WILL SAY THEY SEE 3MBPS OR BEYOND (its not real), THEY ARE AT&T PEOPLE OR JUST ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO DEFEND AT&T EVEN AT&T DOESN'T CARE FOR THEM. Mine is real experience with my wife... I work in IT company & I always use the one that I think is not just cool & good looking but I can tweak & use the heck of it whatever it can offer unlike iphone that YOU can just unlocked & jailbreak (like what i do) but android & windows can be hack & put lots of fast & best ROM that apple iphone cant do. Our iphone is now an mp3 player in our cars, wants some pictures? Then my wife using the EVO as her company pay for her monthly then she just bought the EVO from Sprint. Its a sweet phone but the speed is not consistent & theres time it will be switching a lot of times from 4g to 3g. But still wayyyyy better than verizon & AT&T. Take note, only Tmobile & Sprint didn't have the cap now they will just throttle you if your beyond 5gb but no more paying overages (Tmobile then sprint in 4g mode-no throttling). Can Verizon & AT&T do that? Nope & never because AT&T made the worse decision in lowering the internet usage to 2gb for $25 (Tmobile has $20 for unlimited no cap with super duper fast internet versus 1mbps by AT&T) then Verizon is thinking now to do that also-per usage internet as Sprint & Tmobile will go for no capping.
Theres a lot of fanboys especially in APPLE stuff like iphone that has the basic stuff that was available 10 years ago but Steve Jobs will say its magical & unbelievable, he's the no. 1 liar in the world (I have a friend who still working in APPLE) I'm just new here in Texas as I'm from California & worked with IT company near APPLE. But Texas is the best place to make money now (hehe) then cheaper way of living...He said to me that Steve Jobs is very good in marketing hype but he's not the real guy who's thinking & making apple stuff to work, he's just the marketing guy of APPLE. Then all of his components are made mostly of asus & samsung (not them as other blindly knows) only software & design are theirs, I can attest to that, so wheres APPLE real product-NONE. They are just a big marketing & design company, if you don't believe go to California (to their main headquarter) see if they building any pieces of material to use for their products - none, most of what they are doing is just software & how to market their product. I was there with my friend & I know what I'm saying. Ask ASUS & SAMSUNG then FOXCONN, they will tell you that no parts are made by apple, they will give the design then what materials will use ( APPLE ) then they will wait for delivery and they will use their technology & manpower to build APPLE products ( FOXCONN ).
FANBOYISM towards APPLE is not bad but you should know the reality of what the company you like & love to what they really offer to you & if they lying to you. Even if APPLE will sell ipoop, those fanboys will still buy as long it has APPLE logo on it.
Back to Tmobile, they are the company to watch for & they are not like AT&T that will make advertising 1st before they will do the action, as tmobile will do the work & everything before they will announce in a simple way unlike AT&T like APPLE, they love marketing hype like shortage of Iphone in the 1st day as they know how many people will go & get them but they will not release many units to show they don't have unit to sell, believe me or not those iphone & ipad was made already & its millions now in FOXCONN factory but they will release only hundreds thousands then it will show to their system they don't have stock anymore even they have more, for the people to be more excited & feel the APPLE products are so good that people lining up & their hysteria in getting in store or online, thats MARKETING 101, YOU HAVE TO MAKE PEOPLE EXCITE IN YOUR PRODUCTS THEN THEY WILL THINK YOUR PRODUCTS IS SO GOOD THAT PEOPLE NEEDS TO WAIT FOR LONG TIME.
I hope people will get it now as I want you to be more well aware of what those companies been doing to you, they making you follow them even they are shortchanging you.
I want to share more my ideas, experience & knowledge about all these stuff - just don't go with the hype, test drive it - tweak it & if you feel it has everything u want & its more cheaper - go for it... you can email me at [e-mail] ( i can give you the best advice in telecommunications & computers stuff if I have enough time to answer )
To all those people bashing each other because you like this or that, think first & I suggest that research in google then don't defend what you have that you feel is not giving you the real deal. WE LIVE ONCE NOT TWICE , LIVE TO THE FULLEST ( get the best stuff that you think is appropriate & can make things more easier to you not just LOOKS & BRAND NAME of the products.
Always take care gurls & guys... GOD BLESS YALL...

[gigarath Posted Jul 20th 2010 7:38PM]

3G, 4G? Pa'Shaw! I'm still using EDGE on my 8900. God I feel so cold, and left out.