I think it’s fair to say that even though we all have problems with our wireless providers, the majority of us often come to see Verizon as the most reliable of the bunch. Continuing that trend in perception, Verizon is planning on starting its tests of LTE networks around Seattle and Boston this year. For those who don’t know, LTE is the standard set to replace the current two we use, CDMA (used by Verizon and Sprint-Nextel) and GSM (used by AT&T and T-Mobile). LTE networks are expected to get data speeds of 8-12 Mbps. It’s unlikely that we’ll actually see anything this fast on our phones for a while, however, as actually having a network unclogged enough to deliver this sort of bandwidth is rare.
Verizon’s LTE plan could be an indication that it will be getting an iPhone sometime in the near future. During its announcement of the iPhone 3GS, Apple stuck it to AT&T, calling it out as being the cause of the disabling of tethering and MMS on the iPhone OS 3.0 right out of the box. Apple reps have also said in response to questions about making the iPhone available to Verizon customers that it did not want to build a CDMA iPhone as it felt the standard was dying. Now that the biggest American CDMA standard is going LTE, we might see an iPhone on Verizon sometime soon.
Of course, this does not mean the fourth-generation iPhone is surely going to be LTE. I sort of doubt that Verizon can role out a full-fledged LTE network by next July, when the new iPhone is set to come out. Additionally, Verizon will want to do some serious beefing up of infrastructure before it starts to sell the iPhone. Apple may have made a lot of customers switch to AT&T, but in doing so it severely weakened AT&T’s network as there are now millions of people constantly hammering the network for data. Still, with the recent investigations into handset exclusivity, it seems Verizon is bound to get the iPhone eventually.
