March 31, 2010 - Gerson Lehrman Group - AT&T has launched a PR campaign defending its plans to deploy LTE. Verizon is responding in kind. Blah Blah Blah.

Analysis
AT&T has made some valid points about its plans to deploy LTE in 2011 and its view that LTE will not be mature until 2012.
 
Here are 2 quick lessons in telecom services 101. In my experience, every service that has ever been launched since the Divestiture of AT&T in 1983 takes at least a year or two to soak in the network and to mature as a marketable product. Since the early 1990s, every cellular service ever launched takes at least a year to soak in the network and about 1 year for the commercial market to take root.  So there is some validity to AT&T's remark about LTE maturity in 2012.
 
Will Verizon’s LTE network cover 100 million subs? Sure but that does not mean they are selling LTE service to 100 million subs. It does not mean their network will even be able to handle 100 million LTE users in the first year or second year. Covering a market is not the same as serving a market. Now bear in mind, I am sure dual mode and even tri-mode handsets will be deployed; meaning handsets that are operating in at least two different wireless technology modes. Verizon can still parse the PR and say they have a fully operational network but what does that mean? That means the network is working and that is all.

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