Every day we're moving closer to having more ubiquitous 4G, and recent news shows that Verizon may be the next carrier to market with a 4G network.  During a call with hardware and software partners, David Clevenger, executive director of public affairs for Verizon Wireless, stated that “Technical trials are staged [and] tiered in accordance with industry standards. They’re [now] completed.”  Clevenger went on to say that “The next phase is ‘friendly user trials,’ which means we’re looking for feedback on the network.”  Verizon has been testing LTE in Boston and Seattle and will expand the tests to five cities total during the new user testing phase.  However, the carrier would not explain which three cities will be added to the 4G list. 

It's great to see Verizon working to bring more 4G to the masses.  With Sprint steadily expanding its WiMAX network and Verizon planning a roll out later this year, its obvious that the CDMA carriers in the U.S. are ready to move on to 4G.  AT&T and T-Mobile are currently busy upgrading their networks to HSPA+ rather than moving on to 4G, so it CDMA will be the way to go for 4G in the near future.  If the two GSM carriers want to keep up, they need to start focusing on 4G.  Still, some tests have shown that T-Mobile's HSPA+ is just as fast as, and sometimes faster than, Sprint's WiMAX network.  While WiMAX is still relatively new, those tests show that we may not need 4G as badly as we all think.  What are your thoughts about the move to 4G?

Via TechRepublic