Verizon LTE 4G by 2010

Thinking about getting a new Blackberry soon on the Verizon network? You might want to wait until 2010. In an interview with InformationWeek, Tony Melone, Verizon's chief technology officer (CTO), explained Verizon's decision to roll out its Long-Term Evolution (LTE) nationwide network next year, rather than doing market-by-market. "We want to give our customers a significant footprint," and won't "tease," them he said, with trial deployments. Verizon is going to try to have the service available for some 100 million POPs (points of presence) in 2010 and continue to deploy the network over the next two and three years. "We can build all the bells and whistles and make lots of bold claims," said Melone, "but none of it will matter if the network -- and all of the underlying infrastructure that supports the network -- isn't fundamentally reliable. There will be no substitute for good old-fashioned engineering. Reliability built in at the start based on rigid engineering standards and a disciplined approach year-after-year will continue to be our mantra." So why buy a 3G Blackberry, when 2010 is right around the corner? We suggest you hold-out and wait, as 4G will make your Blackberry's data speeds as fast as broadband.