Verizon Begins ‘Friendly’ LTE Field Trials

Verizon Wireless announced that is LTE technical trails have ended, and the company is now moving on to “friendly user trials” in five cities. Verizon said it is still on track to roll out 25 to 30 LTE markets by the end of 2010.

Verizon had been testing its new 4G network in Boston and Seattle throughout 2010. Boston trials have shown data speeds of between 5 Mbps -12 Mbps on the downlink, and 2 Mbps- 5 Mbps upstream. In comparison, 3G speeds typically top out at 1.5 Mbps down and 0.5 Mbps up.

“The next phase is ‘friendly user trials,’ which means we’re looking for feedback on the network,” said David Clevenger, executive director of public affairs at Verizon Wireless, during a conference call with hardware and software vendors. The user testing will expand to five cities, but Verizon has yet to announce the three additional cities.

It’s also not clear who the “users” will be, however friendly trials typically include company employees and some of the telco’s partners who are building the network gear.

In related news, the company is finalizing new data plans to coincide with the launch of its new 4G network. In an interview last Thursday with Bloomberg Businessweek, Verizon Communications CFO John Killian laid the groundwork for a new pricing scheme.

Verizon estimates that its current smartphone customers are using between 600 and 800 megabytes of data per month, similar to what iPhone customers consume. However the company anticipates “explosions in data traffic” as new phones on 4G networks incorporate data-heavy applications, such as video downloads.

Killian hinted that Verizon will likely eliminate any unlimited data offering in favor of a tiered data pricing model. “We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate,” Killian said.

For more, see this TechRepublic article on Verizon’s LTE trials, and this Bloomberg article on Verizon’s proposed pricing changes.

Related posts:

1. Google Begins Fiber Network Trials at Stanford
2. Verizon Trials LTE Running at 8.5 Mbps
3. Verizon Trials GPON for FiOS
4. Clearwire to Conduct LTE Trials
5. Engadget: Verizon’s LTE Rollout is Imminent