LTE on sale

As we head into the "buying season" also known as Christmas, there's no doubt mobile products/services are going to be big sellers.  

Verizon is maintaining a commanding lead in the US LTE market and the global market in general.  Just last week, analyst firm Telegeography published that Verizon had an estimated 60% of the total LTE subscribers worldwide with 3.1m.  

It sounds like LTE is compelling for Verizon's subscribers.  So I was a bit surprised when I heard an ad saying LTE was on sale at Verizon:  

To be fair, it's just a little sale, a holiday promotion where new subscribers can get 2x the data for the same price.  This got me thinking... if I can get 4GB of data/month for $30 on LTE, what does that cost on their 'old' 3G (EV-DO) network.  Hummm...

The standard EV-DO data pricing as of Dec 2, 2011:

• 2Gb ->  $30
• 5Gb ->  $50
• 10Gb ->$80

LTE data is 50% off.  But wait... I thought LTE was compelling, super fast, wonderful, why would it be 50% the price of EV-DO? 

Verizon's LTE is available in ~130 markets in the US, whereas AT&T has 'launched' service in 15, so they can't be facing competitive pressures.  

I will posit one of the problems is battery performance.  Verizon's 'dual radio' approach to addressing the voice over LTE problem is sucking electrons... fast.  This was a known and acknowledged problem associated with a dual radio approach.  I wonder if CS Fallback will do a better job of inspiring consumer confidence.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Fraydog]

Wouldn't CSFB need Verizon to take out 10 MHz chunks for UMTS? That would be kind of rough on the current EV-DO network.

[Kineto]

Verizon is not doing CS Fallback for voice on their LTE phones. They are pursuing a dual-radio strategy which is similar to how CDMA networks handle ‘3G’ today.

A CDMA network uses a 1xRTT connection (similar to basic GSM) for voice. But recall that 3G data is “EV-DO”, which stands for “data-only”. This means that the 1x connection remains active for voice calls while data runs over the EV-DO network.

Apply this to LTE, and LTE becomes a “DO” network, and the 1x network remains active to provide circuit voice services.

I don’t think this type of dual-radio approach is available to GSM operators. CDMA networks were developed from the ground up to support a dual-connection 1x + EV-DO. GSM never had the concept of two network connections active simultaneously.