One of the biggest stories from the CTIA show last week was Verizon’s announcement of its 38 launch markets.
Lowell McAdam, COO and soon to be CEO of Verizon, spoke with pride about the upcoming LTE launch. He said that the first 38 markets will cover about 1/3 of the US population. He expects VZW to have 100% of their POPs built out for LTE in 3 years.
As for the network, it’s equally impressive. I believe Mr. McAdam said they received 5-10mbp sustained data rates in the field. Plus, the network had just 30msec of latency.
Very impressive.
Later in another press conference, Mr. McAdam did say that they would not have voice on the LTE network, and they will rely on CDMA for voice. (It wasn’t clear how long this would be the case, but certainly they are racing to get voice on LTE completed).
If I were Skype, I’d be paying the Verizon engineers to build LTE faster.
This is the opening Skype has been looking for. An ultra-fast, mobile IP network, which will have coast-to-coast coverage at 700 mhz.
Skype has clients for all the major smartphone OSs. It offers free Skype-Skype calls. It offers Skype to Skype video calls for no cost. It’s got a robust platform independent PC client. Users can get a PSTN phone number with a voice mail box and the ability to send SMS.
Put a Skype client on your Verizon LTE phone and there’s no need for Verizon’s voice service.