Hasta La Gadget!

It’s no huge secret that the differences between LTE and WiMAX aren’t exceedingly drastic, and with the right support, the two could theoretically form one big, happy family. During this morning’s CTIA keynote with Dan Hesse (Sprint’s CEO) and Bill Morrow (Clearwire‘s CEO), the latter noted that he wasn’t interested in waging a war with LTE, suggesting that his spectrum is “designed and built so we can add on LTE should we need to.” ‘Course, one would suggest that Clearwire’s in no position to get angry with the standard that boasts larger industry support, but we digress. A few hours later during Verizon’s LTE roundtable, the carrier’s CTO (Tony Melone) responded to an audience question related to LTE and WiMAX becoming one. His brutally honest opinion? It’ll never happen, and the “only big happy family” he can think of is the 3GPP to LTE crew, of which Verizon Wireless is obviously a member. He wouldn’t elaborate on the whys or whats, only noting that it was his frank opinion on the matter from his knowledge in the field, but we can’t candidly say that we’d love for the war to rage on — competition is stellar, but joined efforts to create a larger, more robust 4G network sounds a lot sweeter to our ears than the clanging of swords.

Clearwire CEO mentions that WiMAX could join LTE as one, Verizon Wireless CTO says no way originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember those LTE trials that Verizon Wireless started up in Boston and Seattle back in August of last year? Good news, mobile surfers — the operator has today confirmed in a roundtable at CTIA that they’re both nearing their end, giving us hope that they’re gleaned the necessary information from them to start moving onto bigger and better things. Namely, more elaborate trials in more locales around the nation. As you might expect, Verizon Wireless is indeed gearing up to move into its next phase of commercial LTE testing, with Tony Melone (Senior VP / CTO) stating that ‘friendly user trials’ were slated to begin this summer. He declined to elaborate on the whos, whats and (most importantly) wheres, but there’s no doubt that these are likely the last hurdles before we see its 4G network go live in “one third” of the country. We’re told that those tests will be used to kick the tires on “commercial” gear, which is starkly different than the non-commercial kit that has been used in Beantown and the Emerald City. So far, the company’s seeing peak rates of around 40Mbps and 50Mbps (down), with average download rates hovering in the 5Mbps to 12Mbps range and upload speeds falling between 2Mbps and 5Mbps. Be sure to let us know if any undercover VZW engineers start installing weird antennas near your abode in the coming months, cool?

Verizon ‘wrapping up’ Boston and Seattle trials, ‘friendly user’ ones coming this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We just spent a tick talking with Verizon Wireless‘ Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer Tony Melone (shown speaking) after the company’s LTE roundtable here at CTIA, and while we’ve heard a lot through the grapevine recently, we wanted to set a few things straight for ourselves. For starters, VZW affirmed that data-centric devices would be splashing down on its commercial LTE network first, possibly as early as the end of this year. When we asked specifically what kinds of devices he meant, he stated that “aircards, USB data sticks and MiFi-type devices” would be first out of the chunnel, with smartphones being “about a quarter behind.” Naturally, we asked why there would be a delay, and he stated that getting a smartphone onto a new network is more difficult than a simple data-only product; there are obvious voice-related issues to work through that aren’t present when you’re only sucking down torrents, and it’ll take some time before full-on phones join the fray. He assured us the earlier data-only device launches wouldn’t be “a public trial,” and he noted that a conservative estimate as to when we’d see LTE phones on Verizon would be “the first half of 2011.” Though, he did confess that folks would likely be pushing for earlier ship dates, and we may see a few phones drop closer to January than July if all the stars align.

Verizon talks commercial LTE deployment details: data devices first, smartphones in ‘1H 2011’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look out folks, we’re about to go LTE, and it’s not from where you were expecting: MetroPCS is building out an LTE network in “various metropolitan markets,” with Las Vegas due to go online first in the second half of 2010. Samsung will be doing the infrastructure work, and is running the presser here at CTIA, with a pretty impressive display of room-based LTE show of force. Samsung, as previously announced, will also be building the first 4G handset for the network, dubbed the SCH-r900, though they aren’t sharing any other details about the device at this point. Samsung ran a quick demo of 4G performance using some laptops and a couple of racks of LTE parts (we’ll have video up momentarily), and was also running some sort of LTE prototype (pictured above), though we don’t know squat about it. PR is after the break.

Update: There’s video after the break! Witness those blazing 4G speeds for yourself, you’ll be amazed and astonished. Or at least mildly entertained.

Continue reading MetroPCS bringing LTE to Las Vegas this year, Samsung doing infrastructure and first LTE handset: the SCH-r900

MetroPCS bringing LTE to Las Vegas this year, Samsung doing infrastructure and first LTE handset: the SCH-r900 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell’s vanilla Atom N450-based Mini 10 just started shipping a couple of months ago, and if you’ll recall, we spotted one slip through the FCC’s oh-so-vulnerable database with WiMAX built-in. Today at CTIA, Clearwire spilled the news that it’ll be providing the service for a 4G-infused version of the netbook come April 1st. What’s interesting is that Clearwire only mentions it being for sale “through select Clear retail locations, telesales and Clear.com,” so it’s still unknown if it’ll be offered up through the Round Rock powerhouse itself (as the Studio 17, Studio XPS 1640 and Latitude E4300, etc. are). The machine will be sold for $249.99 after an instant rebate, though no specifics were mentioned concerning a per-month data plan price. If we were the betting type, we’d say it’ll probably run you 40 bones for every 30 days based on existing rates.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 shipping April 1st with integrated Clear WiMAX originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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