Verizon says it will offer Android phone by year end; 20 to 30 markets to have LTE in 2010

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Verizon says it will offer Android phone by year end; 20 to 30 markets to have LTE in 2010
Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam was in a chatty mood on Thursday. Besides making comments about his firm offering "devices like Palm Pre and a second generation Storm" within the next 6 months, as we earlier reported, the executive also made some comments about Big Red offering an android powered handset in "the near future". Speaking at the Barclays Capital Worldwide Wireless and Wireline conference, Mc Adam said that in the next half year, Verizon would be offering the Palm Pre and a cousin model, the BlackBerry Storm 2 and the BlackBerry Tour along with an Android powered phone.

Running down some of the carrier's future handset portfolio, the CEO talked about a possible combination CDMA/GSM device offered in tandem with Vodafone, the overseas GSM networker that is a part owner of Verizon. The BlackBerry Tour, Mc Adam pointed out, is an upscale version of  RIM's QWERTY equipped devices. He added that his company has had good discussions with Google about bringing Android to Big Red's line-up and he also mentioned that a Motorola branded smartphone is in the carrier's future plans.

McAdam discussed how Verizon would be making a quick move to the 4G LTE network. Instead of commenting on EV-DO Rev. B, which could double the speed of the carrier's current network, he pointed out that 25 to 30 of Verizon's markets will have LTE service at 8-12 Mbps by year end 2010, with full national coverage by the end of 2013. And what will his customers do with all this bandwidth? Mobile video was one application on his mind.
"Facebook and Hulu and all theother video apps that are coming ... and clearly, you will see mobilevideo links so you can have videoconferencing coming.", he said.

source: PCMag

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