Comment Re:Where the choke point really is (Score 1) 273
Verizon's LTE implementation as of now is 10+10MHz with 2x2 MIMO. This is 76Mbps down/36Mbps up per sector. In most cell-phone towers in Urban, Sub-urban and Metro areas they have deployed 3-6 sectors. So the max LTE cell-phone tower (eNodeB if you want to get technical) VZW has is 76x6=456Mbps down shared and 36x6=216Mbps up shared per cell site. VZW is using GigE/OC-X SONET fiber back-haul onto their IP-RAN so they can support all the 4G LTE high-speeds. I bet once VZW notices how efficient their new 4G network is since it's ALL-IP they will improve the caps to probably $50/month for 10-20GB usage per month or something like that. People this just launched the other day, you gotta wait over the next few weeks while they notice how the technology scales over time (probably Q1 2011). The data card speeds are INTENTIONALLY being capped to 8-12 with bursts up to 50Mbps down and 3-5 with bursts up to 10Mbps up when there is capacity. If VZW sold you a LTE USB data card and had the SIM provisioned with uncapped like the engineers have then you would take ALL THE BANDWIDTH of the WHOLE TOWER instantly. Obviously VZW with smart network engineering doesn't want that. They want to sell end-users equal bandwidth. The TeliaSonera implementation is double the frequency so double the bandwidth. VZW can do that too if they bought more spectrum from the FCC which they will probably do over time. Happy Holidays all! ;-)