Updated: Verizon taps LTE for 4G, citing scale, global harmonization

Verizon Communications is breaking from the CDMA camp, announcing today that it has selected Long Term Evolution, the 4G technology of competing GSM technologies, as its next-generation network architecture. The operator said it is working with Verizon Wireless part-owner and GSM operator Vodafone to conduct joint LTE trials in 2008 across multiple markets in the U.S. and in Vodafone’s territories in Europe and Asia.

The implications of the decision could reach far beyond VZW’s own network, though. With Sprint already opting for alternate 4G than those promoted by CDMA’s standards body, the 3GPP2, Verizon’s choice of LTE could be the final nail in the coffin for Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), the presumed heir to CDMA2000. In an industry where a technology’s success depends on the support of big operators, two of CDMA’s biggest operators have defected, and both LTE and WiMAX have now gained U.S. champions.

To deploy the trial network, Verizon is tapping its infrastructure vendors Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel Networks and Motorola, but it is also bringing in vendors from the GSM fold. Ericsson and Nokia Siemens will also participate in the trial, Verizon officials said, marking the first time that either equipment vendor has worked with the CDMA operator. But none of those vendors is guaranteed a contract, said Verizon Chief Technology Officer Dick Lynch. Each will set up shop in a different VZW or Vodafone market to demonstrate the merits of their own LTE solution, after which VZW and Vodafone will award commercial contracts.

Lynch said Verizon selected LTE in consultation with Vodafone after both companies examined the three standardized 4G technologies available. Verizon participated with Vodafone in a WiMAX trial in an international market where Vodafone holds spectrum, though Lynch would not reveal which market. The company also ran UMB kits through lab tests. Lynch said all three technologies performed remarkably the same, primarily because of their shared modulation scheme, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM).

“When we did the technical analysis, we decided there wasn’t that much difference between the OFDM of the 3GPP [GSM’s standards body] and the OFDM of the 3GPP2,” Lynch said. All three technologies offered high broadband capacities, would be available commercially at roughly the same time and were manufactured by the same vendors, he said. The decision then came down to business scale and a desire to harmonize its 4G plans with Vodafone’s other global networks, Lynch said. “It quickly became a decision between LTE and LTE.”

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