@ CES: Verizon Wireless puts on the full-court press for '4G LTE'

LAS VEGAS — Verizon Wireless (VZ) is seemingly everywhere at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show — in fact, it would have been a tall order to avoid the carrier’s presence today.
As expected, the carrier is mostly hyping up the recent launch of its LTE network, but it did also announce a series of 10 devices that will begin coming on board in March. The deepest device lineup for the new network so far includes four smart phones, two tablets, two notebooks and two hotspots. But the gadget announcements didn’t come until later in the day, which left the morning keynote a little flat on news and heavy on the company’s strategy overall.
Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications Inc., kicked the day off with a keynote that aimed to bring all of Verizon’s services — wireless and wired — into greater focus.
Online and mobile users “constitute the biggest market for technology the world has ever known,” he said. “The communications industry is excited to be at the center of this revolution.”
Over the next decade, he envisions “smart homes, smart cities and smart societies” powered by “future-proof networks like the one Verizon is building today,” he added.
“By deciding to go early and to go first with LTE, Verizon made a bet that this market would grow very quickly,” said Lowell McAdam, president and COO. “All 4G is not created equal. We’re building our 4G on contiguous wireless spectrum”
As he laid out the company’s plan to expand its FiOS footprint to 18 million homes in the next year or so, he added that “the real magic happens when you bring all of this together.”
Later on at a press conference, Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead looked back on the carrier’s three-year journey so far to LTE.
Although the carrier is methodically calling its new network “4G LTE,” Mead said it’s not about bragging rights, but “around building the best network.”
Joining him on stage, Tony Melone, SVP and CTO of Verizon Wireless, highlighted the carrier’s early commitment to a “broad and very aggressive” LTE network build. By the end of this year, Verizon’s LTE network will be live in 175 markets, he said.
Deployment plans
As for expanding the reach of its LTE services, Verizon Wireless’ CTO said the carrier over the next 18 months will add another 100 million or so covered pops in 140 markets to its current coverage of 110 million pops in 38 markets. Those new markets will include:
Huntsville, Mobile and Montgomery, Ala.;
Little Rock, Ark.;
Colorado Springs, Colo.;
Gainesville, Lakeland-Winter Haven, Pensacola, Sarasota-Bradenton and Tallahassee, Fla.;
Augusta, Ga.;
Honolulu, Kahului-Wailuku and Lahaina, Hawaii;
Boise-Nampa, Idaho;
Carbondale-Marion, Ill.;
Wichita, Kan.;
Baton Rouge and Hammond, La.;
Detroit and Flint, Mich.;
Fayetteville-Lumberton, Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, Raleigh-Durham and Wilmington, N.C.;
Dayton-Springfield, Ohio;
Tulsa, Okla.;
Erie and State College, Pa.;
Charleston, Columbia, Greenville-Spartanburg and Hilton Head, S.C.;
Sioux Falls, S.D.;
Chattanooga, Clarksville, Cleveland, Kingsport, Johnson City, Bristol, Knoxville and Memphis, Tenn.;
Beaumont-Port Arthur and Bryan-College Station, Texas;
Provo-Orem and Salt Lake City-Ogden, Utah;
Centralia and Olympia, Wash.;
Charleston, W. Va.;
Madison and Milwaukee, Wisc.
Verizon Wireless added that it would then cover the rest of its CDMA network footprint with LTE by the end of 2013.
Those launch plans seem to line up with rival “4G” network launch plans from rivals AT&T Mobility, Sprint Nextel Corp./Clearwire Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc.
Melone also made sure to give props to the carrier’s infrastructure partners, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson AG. “They were tremendous partners for us every step of the way and deserve a lot of credit in achieving this milestone,” he said.
Device lineup
The new devices include four smart phones, one each from HTC Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Motorola Mobility Inc. All of the devices will run the latest Android 2.2 operating system from Google Inc., sport similar 4.3-inch screens and are powered by 1 GHz processors, some of the dual-core variety. Cameras with up to eight megapixels looks to be the norm, as does a front-facing camera for Verizon Wireless’ also announced video chat service from Skype Ltd. and support for mobile hot spot capabilities.
Moving up the screen-size scale, Verizon Wireless also showed off a pair of tablet devices. One was the Motorola Xoom that the device maker had unveiled the previous day, while the other was an enhanced version of the Galaxy Tab from Samsung.
The Motorola device included a 10.1-inch screen, a rear five-megapixel and front two-megapixel camera, and running Google’s tablet-specific Android 3.0 OS. As previously noted, the device will begin shipping next month in a Wi-Fi/3G form, with a Wi-Fi/LTE version hitting stores during the second quarter. Motorola added that the 3G version will be upgradeable to LTE support.
The Samsung tablet features many of the same specifications as the currently available Galaxy Tab, including the seven-inch screen and running Android 2.2. The new version will simply add support for Verizon Wireless’ LTE network.
At the large-end of the screen-size scale, Verizon Wireless also showed off a pair of notebook computers. The first from Compaq was of the netbook variety with a 10.1-inch screen and Intel Corp. Atom processor, while the other was a Hewlett-Packard Co. model with an 11.6-inch screen and AMD processor.
And for those who already have Wi-Fi equipped devices, Verizon Wireless showed off a pair of mobile hot spots compatible with the carrier’s LTE and CDMA network. One model was from Novatel Wireless Inc. with the other from Samsung.
While there was plenty of glitz on stage, there was very little heft behind the curtains. Verizon Wireless was not providing any pricing details for the new devices or launch dates nor what customers may have to pay each month to access those highly-touted network speeds. The carrier currently charges $50 per month for five gigabytes and $80 per month for 10 GB of data transmission for LTE access using wireless modems.
The details
Finally, during questions, Verizon Wireless declined to make any all-in commitments about voice and data running simultaneously on its new LTE devices. While it did say at least some of the forthcoming devices will have that capability, the company stopped short of saying that would be the case for all of its LTE devices.