Verizon to Use 700 MHz Spectrum for LTE

Verizon Wireless says it will use the block of 700 Mhz spectrum it won in the recent FCC auction to deploy an LTE wireless broadband network, with service starting in 2010.

Verizon Wireless was the big winner in the FCC’s 700 MHz spectrum auction, paying some $9.36 billion for licenses in the 700 Mhz band, including the largest Class C block and 103 individual 700 MHz licenses around the country. Now that the anti-collusion quiet period surrounding the auction has expired, the company has revealed what it plans to do with the 700 MHz band: deploy a nationwide wireless broadband network based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, with service expected to start up in 2010.

“We now have sufficient spectrum to continue growing our business and data revenues well into—and possibly through—the next decade, and this is the very best spectrum with excellent propagation and in-building characteristics,” said Verizon Wireless president and CEO Lowell McAdam, in a statement. “We also believe that the combination of the national, contiguous, same-frequency C-block footprint and our transition to LTE will make Verizon the preferred partner for developers of a new wave of consumer electronics and applications using this next generation technology.”

Long-Term Evolution is a high-bandwidth extension of existing cell phone data technology that many expect to become the preferred mobile broadband solution for the majority of the world’s wireless carriers—and Verizon’s largest stakeholder, Vodafone, has minced no words in exhorting the wireless industry to embrace LTE as a standard.

The main technology competing the LTE is WiMax: unlike LTE, WiMax technology is available for deployment now, although Sprint just delayed introduction of its U.S. WiMax service Xohm until later this year. However, with Verizon not planning to get LTE into consumer’s hands until 2010, Sprint still looks to have plenty of time to get bandwidth-hungry U.S. mobile users hooked on WiMax before competition really begins to heat up.

AT&T also announced plans for its 700 MHz spectrum wins: it also plans to roll out LTE, but services aren’t expected to come online until 2012. Combined with 700 MHz licenses it purchased from Aloha Partners before the FCC auction, AT&T says it will be able to cover all the top 200 U.S. markets and offer LTE services to 87 percent of the U.S. population.