Bostonians are excited to hear that they are going be some of the first testers of “4G” service (see article here) from various providers by the end of the year. They are the only city that is going to be privileged enough to have a taste of “4G” speed services from four different service providers, two offering WiMAX technology, the other two being LTE. An article in the Boston Globe happily describes the faster data services that are going to be available for the city starting in the upcoming month.
There is no question as to which companies are unrolling “4G” services this year; there are only four companies releasing what they are calling fourth generation wireless service within the next few months and they are Clearwire, Sprint, Verizon, and MetroPCS. Clearwire and Sprint utilize WiMAX technology, and Verizon and MetroPCS make use of LTE technology. Luckily for Boston, they are all scheduled for deployment in that one city in 2010.
Clearwire and Sprint are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. Sprint is the majority shareholder of Clearwire and they share the same WiMAX network.
“We should launch sometime during the month of September,’’ said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse in a speech while in Boston last week.This will please many Sprint customers, especially those who have the first “4G” compatible smartphone, the HTC EVO 4G, that is currently sold out in many stores all over the country. Sprint has another “4G” phone due to come out next week, the Samsung Epic 4G, which will probably also sell out, especially in cities like Boston that get “4G”. Clear, however, will be launching within the next week, according to Matthew Drinkhahn, Clearwire’s general manager for Boston. Data service will be available under the brand name Clear with plans starting from $30 a month.
Verizon and MetroPCS also have launching plans in Boston for the current year using LTE technology. They will likely be offering similar services. MetroPCS already has a LTE-enabled phone, the Samsung Craft. Verizon is sure to follow, but their cell phone services won’t be available until they create their own LTE-enabled phone. Until then, Verizon will be releasing dongles to expand coverage. Those two LTE carriers still have a long way to go before they release “4G” services that are even comparable to the WiMAX services that Sprint and Clear are going to be providing.
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Im Glad LTE technology is coming up, i am tired of all this empty promises from the WIMAX dreamers. Clearly Wimax sucks since they want to switch technologies. Clearwire Or Clear whatever you want to call it have not even finished building with Wimax technology and they are still in the red.
Clear emailed me in Boston, and shared that they are doing a meet and greet for their Boston launch, seems like anyone who blogs/tweets is invited. theclearblog.com/bostonmeetup
All this people talking about Wimax this Wimax that. I want to see how many of these people are actually buying stock with these WImax providers. I'm just saying, since they throwing so much hype!!
Watcha
Watcha
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