Full 4g Service For New York City, Los Angeles, And San Francisco

Sprint and its partner Clearwire finally announced full 4G service for New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. New York will roll out on November 1st, and is the test market. Los Angeles is scheduled for December 1st, with San Francisco launching in late December.

Full 4G Service for New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco

Sprint was a bit vague on the details of services offered. What they are saying is that New Yorkers should be able to get WiMax in all five boroughs plus some suburban areas. In the San Francisco Bay Area, 4G will be active between San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco, while coverage in Los Angeles will range from the San Fernando Valley to parts of Orange County.

Sprint has a head start over competitors. By the end of the year, Sprint is scheduled to activate 4G in Miami, Tampa, Denver, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C, which will bring its total WiMax cities to 62. Verizon is hot on their heels and has announced that it will be that it will activate its 4G LTE network in 38 cities by the end of 2010.

What is the big deal about 4G? 4G is the short name for fourth-generation wireless. It is expected to use available radio spectrum more efficiently and as a result, provide end users with cable-modem transmission speeds which will support high-quality streaming video. Its objective (never reached) was 275 Mbps download speed and 75 Mbps upload. The industry has settled down to LTE technology as the underpinning of the 4G wireless generation, which should offer consumers mobile download speeds of 5 to 10 Mbps, with the promise of even greater speeds in the future.

Those offering 4G Wireless will have the financial advantage over those not offering it. In a recent announcement made by Mavenir Systems, a study found that that by offering voice, video and multimedia messaging services together with 4G basic connectivity services, 4G Operators can gain a clear financial advantage.

Weve surmised that this is the case and now we have quantifiable data that supports a rapid move by Mobile Operators, said Shubh Agarwal (News - Alert), Mavenirs Vice President of Marketing. Proactively marketing and branding these converged communications services will also enrich the end user experience, offer greater differentiation, improve customer loyalty and reduce churn.

The biggest asset to having 4G wireless is the streaming video. With all the new Smartphones coming out with the ability to watch live TV and movies, the networks have to be able to provide smooth viewing. After all, who wants to watch a video doing the hesitation waltz?

Are you will to pay for the higher speed? At this point Sprint charges an additional $10 per month for the 4G service. Verizon historically charges more for everything, so I imagine it will be charging more for this service as well. AT&T has no plans to go to 4G. (The iPhone 4 is NOT 4G.) So whats it worth to you? Since I live in the foothills of the Sierras, it will be a long time before technology catches up to us here. I am just happy to have DSL now and a cell phone that doesnt drop too many calls.