It is finally official, or at least, somewhat official. Verizon Wireless has given a somewhat official date, or timeline, of their first 4G LTE mobile phone. It appears that Verizon will be releasing their first LTE 4G phone around the middle of next year.
Verizon first expected to have their handset on the market in the last few months of 2011 or the first few months of 2012, but they’ve been able to bring that time scale down quite a bit. Some regions will be able to latch onto these new 4G phones from Verizon at the end of this year.
Competitor and rival, Sprint Nextel Corporation has successfully launched data cards already with 4G capabilities and are in preparation of launching their first 4G cell phone summer of 2010.
Verizon is expecting to launch a mobile phone that uses Long Term Evolution technology, which is wireless high-speed technology, for their 4G phones. They are hoping to use this integration of LTE within about six months after the launch of the 4G wireless service. The phones that use the Long Term Evolution technology will more than likely come with dual-chip sets instead of single chip sets as the dual-chips are needed for the Verizon network and the 4G LTE phones to be compatible with each others in its fullest form.
You can expect to see broadband data cards in 4G before anything else and you can also expect that complete full coverage won’t be likely in the immediate future of the 4G mobile phone and plan launch, says Verizon. Furthermore, Anthony Melone, a chief technology officer of Verizon, thinks that they will need to eliminate the unlimited data packages in order to fully integrate the Long Term Evolution technology and 4G handsets and plans. Frankly, it’s not going to be cheap for this technology and 4G, and unlimited data plans simply take away a lot of their revenue, which could ultimately be used towards this new 4G service.
If Verizon decides to eliminate their unlimited phone and data plans, will they be able to survive in this heavy competitive market between cell phone carriers? In my personal opinion, if they do this and the competitors, such as Sprint and AT&T decide to allow their unlimited plans to stay intact, then there may just be a problem for Verizon Wireless. On the other hand, who will be on top if all mobile carriers remove their unlimited plans?
