Verizon going to push as many as 30 Long Term Evolution (LTE) markets up and running within the US in the fourth quarter of this year will mean that Sprint Nextel Corp. with its companion, Clearwire LLC (Nasdaq: CLWR) -- will soon no longer be the one operator that may claim a so-known as "4G" community in the US.

Sprint, which makes use of Clearwire's WiMax community for its 4G service, at present operates it in forty three markets. Clearwire has thus far stated that it plans to cowl around one hundred twenty million people throughout the US by the tip of 2010 and is promising launches in main markets like the Bay Space, Los Angeles, and New York City by that time.

Verizon Wi-fi is promising to begin its LTE service in the fourth quarter. The operator might want to launch in lots of main cities to hit its plan to cowl a hundred million potential clients by the end of the year. Verizon, however, isn't commenting on a report from Engadget that November 15 is the day that its preliminary LTE companies will go commercial.

A restricted November launch is a risk, based on Heavy Reading's Berge Ayvazian. "I do know Verizon is pushing to launch LTE in as many markets as potential earlier than year-finish," notes the senior consultant. "November 15 is feasible -- however it would imply fewer markets."  This, he suggests, will up the pressure on Dash and Clearwire to make wireless broadband out there in major markets like NYC and San Francisco. "Clearwire will have to be business in the top markets by then for certain," Ayvazian says.

Sprint and Clearwire will proceed to have one advantage over Verizon's early LTE service: the operators can offer smartphones that assist WiMax and CDMA services. Sprint already has the HTC EVO 4G and will launch a Samsung 4G telephone later this year. Verizon isn't expecting to have LTE smartphones until someday in the first half of 2011.

In fact, neither of the networks actually qualifies as a true 4G community below the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 's definition of 4G. These requirements include common downlink speeds of a hundred Mbit/s within the broad space community, and as much as 1 Gbit/s for local access or low mobility scenarios. (See ITU Approves New 4G Specs.)

Verizon says its LTE community will provide average knowledge download speeds of between 5 and 12 Mbit/s by the end of 2010. Clearwire offers round 6-Mbit/s downlinks with bursts as much as 10 Mbit/s. (See Counting Down to LTE.)

source: LR mobile