Verizon has been making great efforts, to cover our states with as much 4G as they can, in a fairly short period of time. They remain well on track to meet their goal of adding 4G LTE to 175 markets by the end of the year. Starting July 21st, they are again adding another new set of locations to their 4G/LTE map.

These cities include:

• Wilkes-Barre, PA
• Charleston, WV
• Wichita, KS
• Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
• Louisville, KY as well as Los Angeles and San Diego, CA are set to receive further expansion.

Verizon customers in the areas mentioned above can get excited about the 12Mbps real-word downlink speeds and up to 5Mbps uplink speeds. If you are interested in an LTE device, Verizon currently has three in its roster: the Samsung Droid Charge, the HTC Thunderbolt, and the LG Revolution. We will continue to keep you updated on Verizon’s plans to bring 4G LTE to the rest of America.

How will Verizon’s LTE offering stack up to rival T-Mobile’s improved HSPA+ network?
Is Verizon’s 4G in your neighborhood yet?
Will you stay with Verizon for it’s LTE services, or will their new tiered pricing, chase you somewhere else?
Let me know in the comments below.

source: Verizon

According to a report from T- Mobile, they will be expanding their 4G HSPA+ network to 47 new cities across the US. This brings the list of current markets to 102 after they added 50 more markets back in May. That’s a fairly impressive number and to deploy that many more at one time, seems like a lot. It appears like T-Mobile really wants to be the GSM contender that keeps up with Verizon’s latest efforts to supply the nation with global 4G coverage.

The fact that their new HSPA+ markets are capable of 42Mbps, it seems a shame that the only device capable of using that speed so far, is the Rocket 3.0. But we have all seen the goodies that are coming down the pipes for T-Mobile, in the not too distant future.

Thinking further, maybe Verizon could actually learn a little here and see the other angle in which a company can approach a nationwide upgrade. Maybe having the network in place and ready, and then releasing the devices, isn’t such a bad way to go after all. I know it’s discouraging for me to own a 4G device, and live where it isn’t available yet. Good thing I make trips to the city and airports enough to make some use of it.

Anyhow, here is the list of cities being added:
• Akron, Ohio
• Albuquerque, N.M
• Allentown-Bethlehem, Penn
• Brownsville, Texas
• Cape Coral, Fla
• Canton, Ohio
• Charleston-North Charleston, S.C
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Colorado Springs, Colo
• Columbia, S.C
• Columbus, Ohio
• Corpus Christi, Texas
• Fayetteville, N.C
• Florence, S.C
• Fresno, Calif
• Harrisburg-Carlisle, Penn
• Hickory-Lenoir-Morgantown, N.C
• Killeen, Texas
• Lakeland, Fla
• Lancaster, Penn
• Las Cruces, N.M
• Madera, Calif
• McAllen, Texas
• Merced, Calif
• Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, S.C
• Napa, Calif
• Palm Bay, Fla
• Palm Coast, Fla
• Panama City, Fla
• Pueblo, Colo
• Reading, Penn
• Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif
• Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, Calif
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• San Antonio, Texas
• San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif
• Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta, Calif
• Santa Fe, N.M
• Sarasota, Fla
• Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Penn
• Sebastian, Fla
• State College, Penn
• Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, Va
• Wilmington, N.C
• Visalia-Porterville, Calif
• Waco, Texas
• York-Hanover, Penn

***UPDATE
Apparently the carrier issued an erroneous statement that it would be launching dual-carrier HSPA+ in 47 markets, and later issued a correction stating the expansion would only cover 41 new markets.

T-Mobile decided to delay the launch of dual-carrier HSPA+ in Pennsylvania, which was the cause for the change in number of markets being deployed.

Six markets in the state, Allentown-Bethlehem, Harrisburg-Carlisle, Lancaster, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, State College and York-Hanover, were dropped from T-Mobile’s first list of dual-carrier HSPA+ markets set to go live today. The only city from the state that remains on the list is Reading, Penn.
This brings the total number of markets launched to 96, not 102 as previously stated.
Just wanted to bring you up to date on the changes.

Is your city on the map?
Will they remain a threat to Big Red?
What do you think?

source: tmonews

We’ve all seen the announcements where AT&T claimed the Inspire would be on of the first 4G (HSPA+) devices coming this year. Well, apparently they put the 4G name on it but forgot the network to go with it.

According to customers, the new Inspire 4G doesn’t even feature full compatibility with the “4G” HSPA+ AT&T network. While they told everyone at CES it will in fact be a 4G device, this has been proven wrong. Several users noticed instantly that while download speeds were on par with other HSDPA-enabled AT&T smartphones, upload speeds seemed a bit slow.

This could be because of two different reasons: HTC’s Inspire 4G either doesn’t feature compatibility with AT&T’s HSUPA service, something they forgot to check, or the carrier has disabled it in the phone’s firmware. If disabled, doesn’t this defeat the purpose of even purchasing a 4G device? Let us know what you think!

UPDATE: Looks like AT&T just didn’t let customers know this service is turned off by default. The phones seem to need a ‘rooting’ before you can unlock the faster 4G speeds. Is that what customers want? I don’t think so. Let us know what you think.

Source: BGR

Our Geeks have talked about this device and come to find out, it’s absolutely what you expected and more! The Samsung Vibrant 4G has been confirmed by one of  BoyGeniusReport’s tipsters with details and a photo. Looks like TMobile is going to have another popular device available soon but no dates were confirmed.

The image above shows you some of what is in store. BGR mentions how the phone above is not skinned with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI but Samsung is supposed to be working on an Android 2.3 compatible version, bollocks. He confirms this is definitely Android 2.3 while the first rumors you heard were that it was Android 2.2. Also, notice the front facing camera, doesn’t that excite you?

Features of the Samsung Vibrant 4G:

• A 21Mbps HSPA+ radio
• TMobile self-proclaimed 4G network
• 4-inch Super AMOLED display
• Android 2.3
• Front Facing Camera

Source: BGR

Today, At&t announced that is has completed the first half of its upgrade to 7.2Mbps HSPA. They’ve upgraded the software at the cell sites, but the expensive part, getting the backhaul there, will still be coming with hopes of completing it for the majority of their 3G network by the end of the year. “The backhaul process has already begun in the initial test markets of Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami”.

Source: Gizmodo

Phone calls cost money. As consumers, we have the option to pay as you go, pay for a set amount of minutes per month, or choose  an unlimited amount of minutes per month. But the amount of calls that the cell company can process is a static amount and is expensive and costs the same no matter which phone plan a user opts for. More phones calls for a set amount of space raises the cost of handling phone calls.

The amount of calls that they can process per chunk of their finite spectrum allocated to them by the FCC is important. The more calls they can handle with less resources frees up space for more bandwidth-intensive applications like internet access. Higher speeds and more bandwidth are things that we all can enjoy.

For U.S. Carriers that use GSM as their basis of cellular communication (AT&T and T-Mobile), the move to 4G via LTE is especially important. Besides the speed gains (as high as 100 Mbps for download) and advertising advantage versus 3G competitors, LTE will allow its users (Verizon Wireless (who is making the switch from CDMA-based to GSM-based technologies for 4G), AT&T, and T-Mobile in the U.S.) to package more mobile phone calls per 1 Mhz of space then ever was possible before.

In a perfect and simplified world, basic GSM (2.5G) technology can move between 4 and 8 calls per 1 Mhz. Not bad in our perfect simplified world. Moving up to UMTS (3G) nets 12 calls per Mhz while HSPA (3.5G) can get 24 calls per Mhz. That is all good and dandy, but what about the 4G bringer, LTE? Anywhere from 50 to 80 calls per Mhz.

As you can see, LTE is going to be a major upgrade for both carriers and consumers as more calls per Mhz means lower costs for carriers which will (hopefully) translate to lower bills and higher speeds for consumers. For those who would like to get down and dirty with the details, please go to the source link for a more in-depth explanation into how these numbers were figured out.

Source- MobileSociety.com