Introduction of 4G handsets

Sunday, December 19, 2010

With the "4G" wars heating up, we're facing some exciting and interesting battles for 2011. Sprint may have been first out of the gate with its WiMax network and the launch of the HTC Evo 4G and Samsung Epic 4G, but now Verizon and T-Mobile have crashed the party.

Verizon lit up its 4G network in 38 markets and in more than 60 airports on December 5 and plans to blanket the entire country over the next 18 months. Though Verizon didn't reveal any LTE handsets at the time--just two USB modems--the carrier did say that it would talk about "consumer-oriented smartphones" at CES 2011.

Indeed, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg is scheduled to give the opening keynote on January 6, and the carrier is planning a press conference for later that day. We're sure that we'll hear about new handsets at both events, though details are few at this point. Images of an LTE smartphone from LG have leaked onto the Web already, but we expect three or four additional devices from Big Red.

In addition to Verizon, T-Mobile also will be holding an event at CES, where it plans to talk more about its HSPA+ network and upcoming 4G products. Yes, there's debate (mostly in the tech world) about whether T-Mobile should even call its HSPA+ network 4G, since it's more of an evolution of its 3G network, but the carrier is running with it and has launched a not-so-subtle ad campaign and several accompanying products, including the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G and the T-Mobile G2.