Verizon Promises 4G Wireless For Rural America 135
Hugh Pickens writes "A Pew study last year found that only 38 percent of rural American homes have access to broadband Internet, compared to 57 percent in cities and 60 percent in the suburbs. All that could be about to change with the announcement that Verizon plans to start introducing a new wireless network in the 700 MHz spectrum in 2010. 'The licenses we bought in the 700MHz auction cover the whole US,' says Tony Melone, a Verizon Wireless VP. 'And we plan to roll out LTE [high-speed mobile service] throughout the entire country, including places where we don't offer our [current] cell phone service today.' Because the [700 MHz] spectrum is in a lower frequency, it can transmit signals over longer distances and penetrate through obstacles, and because the signals travel longer distances, Verizon can deploy fewer cell towers than if it used spectrum from a higher frequency band, which means it can provide coverage at a lower cost. President Obama's administration is well aware of the high-speed Internet divide that exists today, and as part of the overall economic stimulus package passed by Congress, the government is allocating $7.2 billion for projects that bring broadband Internet access to rural towns and communities."
But will it be capped? (Score:3, Interesting)
I just hope it is a service with a reasonable cap or without a cap. The current 5GB limit to the wireless internet is way to small. If it has a 100GB or over cap I'd sign up today. Currently, I run about 25GB over Sprint Broadband and would expect more with a faster service. And yes it is all legal stuff...
Re:Why is everyone ignoring the latency issues? (Score:1, Interesting)
Because with EVDO there are no bad latency issues. ATT 3G is not very good. HSDPA and UMTS in their current form are less capable than EVDO, which has ping times under 100ms. If ATT would support HSUPA, then they would get 3.6 Mb/s on the link.
Re:But will it be capped? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe they will do something completely ridiculous and charge reasonable prices for metered bandwidth.
Everyone one wins, light users pay less, heavy users get the bits they want for a reasonable amount, the company has the resources necessary to expand the network.
Re:America? (Score:2, Interesting)
I usually say North America to refer to the continent. This has the added benefit of distinguishing it from South America.