Verizon Wireless: Two announcements, one vision: Operator’s open-access, LTE plans point to consumer-electronic future

Verizon Wireless’ two major announcements this week laid out not only a vision of open access for devices and applications on its current network, but augmented that vision with the carrier’s technology choice for its next-generation network.
“We see 4G really being the enablement of consumer-electronics devices on our network,” said Verizon Wireless CTO Dick Lynch. “We really, really feel strongly about that, and we feel there is a new paradigm coming, so consequently we need a network that is supportive of these open devices and we need a network that is considered worldwide-so that the consumer-electronics industry can have comfort that when they design products that include enabling wireless, it’s going to work no matter where in the world they sell it.”
Lynch added that Verizon Wireless could have waited to announce its choice of Long Term Evolution for 4G, but “wanted to make clear our path to an open-device environment of the future.”
Lynch said that the carrier’s open-access announcement was important because some consumer-electronics manufacturers may well decide to start working on 3G devices for the network now, rather than wait for LTE to launch in 2010 or 2011. He said the company expects growth from both 3G and 4G.
Multiple devices
Lynch described a future for the wireless carrier that includes 2G- or 3G-only devices, 4G-only devices, and dual-mode devices-and emphasized that Verizon Wireless’ network as it stands now will continue to operate for the foreseeable future.
“Customers have a variety of different requirements,” Lynch said. “Those requirements evolve, they don’t just dramatically change.” So, he said, Verizon Wireless expects that “the vast majority of customers we expect will still come in looking for voice and basic data services. . Our 3G network is still going to be there and still provide those customers with a very effective level of service.”
Lynch said the carrier knew its 4G network would need to be able to handle more bandwidth and have lower latency. Options for 4G technology-including WiMAX, Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) and LTE-offered many of the same features, including OFDM technology and antennas enhancements. The technologies would also be available within a year or two of one another, Lynch said.
Lynch explained that there were no significant technological advantages among the options, so the carrier’s team ultimately “concluded . that LTE will be the de facto choice of much of the GSM community” and that both CDMA and GSM carriers would need to switch to OFDM technology.
“We felt that the consumer-electronics vision pushed us to a common technology across the world, unless there was a dramatic technological difference (among the options)-and there isn’t,” Lynch explained. “So it makes sense from a pragmatic business standpoint to go to LTE.”
‘Independently and simultaneously’
Lynch added that Verizon Wireless and its co-parent Vodafone Group plc had been working independently on their respective 4G paths, and the companies “surprised each other in one of our regularly scheduled meetings” with the discovery that the two carriers had “independently and simultaneously [come] to the conclusion that LTE was the right choice.”