Verizon to Activate 25 to 30 LTE Markets in 2010

Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg says his firm will begin deployment of its fourth-generation Long Term Evolution network "later this year with a few commercially-ready markets and will roll it out to 25 or 30 markets in 2010."

But the infrastructure only is "just one piece of the puzzle," he says. "It's the combination of devices, applications and network capabilities that will really cause this market to take off," Seidenberg says. "No single company will be able to envision, let alone provide, every aspect of this whole 4G ecosystem on its own."

That is a primary reason why the 4G business model will be different from what we have seen with 2G networks, with 3G being someplace in between. Where 2G was largely a vertically-integrated business, 3G has been more open, at least to the extent that broadband access to the Internet itself is an "open" environment.

The 4G model inevitably will be more of an "ecosystem" approach, in part because many applications are seen as "machine to machine," and in part because device and application openness will be much more central ways of creating new applications.

http://sev.prnewswire.com/telecommunications/20090401/NY9285501042009-1.html