Verizon, Please Don't Over-Promise on LTE

Watching Sunday Night Football last night, I was as surprised as anyone to see the Verizon Wireless “teaser” ads for the December launch of its initial LTE markets. I lived (painfully) through the launch of the initial 2G services in the mid-'90s, and the launch of the initial 3G services of the early ’00s as the SVP of global marketing for Qualcomm ¬ which provides the chips in the handsets for Verizon’s CDMA network. I’ve been involved with the planned LTE roll outs since 2008, and was eagerly awaiting the marketing and consumer communication to see what the wireless industry would promise with Long Term Evolution 4G networks.

So Verizon, stop it. Stop it now. Give us what we want. The speed of LTE on top of your robust EV-DO Rev A network. Low-latency browsers that work better thanks to LTE. Robust VoIP for our Skype mobile. Apps that download and update quickly over the air, instead of telling us to go find a Wi-Fi connection. LTE coverage at 700MHz that works in our homes and offices. Devices that actually have performance and battery life to make it through a day of the type of usage being promised. Initial launch handsets that are not mocked as battery-sucking hand-warmers like the first 2G and 3G handsets were.