Originally Posted by
pittpanther
I hope you're not hanging your hat on "a year or two..." Verizon has been rolling out the FIOS service since 2005, and most of the country still isn't close to having that available.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming Verizon - I know these rollouts of new technology ar very difficult. Which is why I don't believe any reports about LTE "in a year or two." Maybe in a small number of very lucky test areas, but on a national basis? Nah... More like 5 years I would guess.
Different arms of the same mythical five-headed beast.
Verizon (the end result of the Bell Atlantic+NYNEX+GTE+Worldcom [belated] megamerger - they're the landline/FiOS side) is HORRID at deploying new technology - this is the side of the company that constantly sends out mailings advertising 'high speed internet' at "2X dialup speeds!" like it's the second coming.
Verizon Wireless (VZW for short) is actually a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone (one of the world's largest wireless carriers). Because VZW is Voda's only outlet in North America, they have a lot of pull in the partnership, and that pull has resulted in faster rollouts of new tech. To bring this back around to the iPhone, it's Voda's influence (in some capacity) that resulted in VZW choosing LTE over WiMax as their 4G technology - VZW running LTE finally provides same-technology roaming for Vodafone customers visiting the USA.