Since WiMAX has already been available to consumers here in the US for close to a year now via Sprint and Clear (and originally XOHM, of course!), the carriers who have chosen to go with LTE for their 4G network obviously have a lot of catching up to do. In an interesting move, Verizon Wireless, one of the carriers who is building an LTE network to compete with WiMAX, plans to try to make their network available in one mass rollout rather than the city-by-city type of deployment that Clear and Sprint have been doing. Senior VP and CTO Tony Melone said in an interview this week that next year's Verizon LTE rollout "will be as close to all-at-once as possible... We want to give our customers a significant footprint."
That is a unique plan, but is it accurate or even feasible? In the same interview, Melone indicated that Verizon's Boston and Seattle test LTE networks were working well and that they would be deploying networks in 25 to 30 networks in 2010, with more to come in the next "two to three years". While 25 to 30 markets all at once is certainly much more of a mass rollout than what Clear and Sprint have done, that is far from a promise of nationwide coverage.
It will be years before either WiMAX or LTE are truly nationwide (even 3G still isn't available "everywhere"), and only time will tell which of the 4G technologies will provide the best coverage and the best performance.
Discuss Verizon's LTE Plans and Promises on the 4G Forums
