Verizon Wireless Accelerating LTE Schedule

Here’s a new wrinkle: 2009 may see the birth of a technology arms race, now that Verizon Wireless has decided to move up its deployment schedule for LTE.

“We expect that LTE will actually be in service somewhere here in the U.S. probably this time next year,” said Verizon Wireless CTO Dick Lynch, speaking at a Cisco Systems C-Scape conference this week. That’s a broad shift in strategy from the operator’s previous stated plans to aim for commercial deployment beginning some time in 2010.

Why the acceleration? It could be to position itself to be more competitive with the WiMAX onslaught planned by Clearwire Corp.. And, to get the jump on fellow LTE-planner AT&T Inc..

But also, Verizon Wireless won the open-access C block and other spectrum in the 700MHz auction this spring, shelling out almost $10 billion for it. It’s this real estate the carrier plans to use for LTE, and given the economic realities, it would behoove them to use it as soon as possible to start recouping that investment. And, according to Chris Ebert, head of 4G strategic marketing at Nokia Siemens Networks, 4G is a linchpin to get the most out of data services.

“Data traffic is expanding exponentially, and the real benefit of LTE and the reason carriers want to get there is the ability to deliver the data at a tenth of the cost and at higher speeds,” he said. “And the higher speeds let you deliver the services people really want. It’s a virtuous cycle.”

In terms of capex priorities, Ebert noted that wireless is drifting to the top of the heap for operators. “If you can only have three or four things to focus on, the last thing you want to slow down on is wireless because of the growth and revenue capabilities,” he said. “It's the investment in wireless that will allow you to add subscribers and do more things with their network.”

One potential issue is the fact that the final spec for LTE is not due out of the 3GPP standards body until March 2009. Some analysts have said that this fact may force Verizon Wireless to deploy pre-standard equipment to meet its timeline, then upgrade to the final version when the equipment allows.