With WiMAX, LTE and HSPA all poised to gain major ground this year, expect the nation's major wireless carriers to put networks front and center at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas next week. And the stage for cutthroat competition already is set: Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility have dueling events scheduled for Wednesday, March 24, while T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel each have press conferences tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, March 23. It ought to be one heck of a show.
But, specifically, what can we expect? "Verizon will talk about LTE. AT&T will probably talk about LTE and Android. Sprint will talk about WiMAX. And T-Mobile will talk about HSPA+," summed Nielsen analyst Roger Entner. So let's go through the list, starting at the top:
Verizon: Top execs for the nation's largest carrier will participate in a media roundtable March 24 on Verizon's LTE progress. The carrier may also discuss its LTE backhaul partners, and likely will commercially launch its previously announced Skype application.
AT&T: Chief Ralph de la Vega is scheduled to host a luncheon March 24 around noon. The No. 2 carrier may provide further insight into its network upgrade plans for this year; AT&T already has outlined plans to boost network spending.
Sprint Nextel: The nation's No. 3 carrier is scheduled to host an afternoon event Tuesday, March 23. "Join Sprint CEO Dan Hesse at an exciting invitation-only media event to hear how Sprint is taking the wireless experience to new heights in 2010." Current Analysis analyst William Ho thinks the carrier's much-discussed WiMAX smartphone may be unveiled. The carrier also promised news of its efforts in the embedded machine-to-machine area.
T-Mobile: A rep for the nation's No. 4 operator said T-Mobile "will primarily focus on the T-Mobile network and continued efforts to provide faster speeds to consumers. As you've probably already heard, T-Mobile has made great strides in upgrading their 3G footprint, which now covers 273 U.S. cities and more than 206 million people as well as deploying HSPA+ more broadly throughout 2010, which we're excited to share with CTIA attendees."
But the fun likely won't stop there. Flat-rate player Leap Wireless said it will announce a dramatic expansion of its coverage area (from 194 million POPs to 277 million POPs) via roaming agreements with unnamed partners. The carrier will introduce at CTIA new service plans for the expanded coverage area. Leap also hinted in its latest quarterly report plans to offer BlackBerry and Android phones this year, which Ho predicted will coincide with the introduction of new smartphone service plans (MetroPCS offers unlimited BlackBerry for $60 per month). Details on that may be forthcoming at CTIA as well. And cable vendor Cox has hyped a March launch of its planned wireless network, making CTIA a likely jumping-off point. But, Ho asked, will Cox manage to integrate its wireline, cable service with its wireless play?
"We know a lot of it already," Entner concluded of the upcoming show. But he said the real issue isn't network technologies, it's the services running over those networks. "I think the bigger buzz should be around devices and applications," he said. "And that's why people are still buying the iPhone left and right, because of what you can do with it."
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Operators laser in on network upgrades - CTIA 2010 preview
Source: Fierce Mobile Content
Date: 03/15/2010
