Sidecut Reports

One thing to think about as you consider that shiny new 4G phone purchase — if you are looking at the snazzy new LTE devices from Verizon Wireless or the upcoming ones being promised for later this year from AT&T, get used to the fact that your data service won’t “roam” when you are outside of your carrier’s 4G coverage area. Instead, you will likely drop back to 3G or slower service when roaming — and that’s going to be the case for quite some time.

Why is this happening? Mainly because the biggest carriers in the U.S. market, AT&T and Verizon, are using different parts of the 700 MHz frequency band for their LTE networks — and right now it’s cost- and management-prohibitive to put additional chips into the new phones just to support roaming onto another carrier’s service.

Fierce Wireless has a good recap of some hearings in Washington D.C. yesterday where smaller carriers are fighting the big boys, trying to get the gubmint to require that data roaming for 4G services in the 700 MHz band is made possible. There might eventually be some FCC prodding, but the bottom line for consumers is that this ain’t happening anytime soon.

Right now the 4G phones from Verizon as well as the forthcoming ones from AT&T are loaded with little radio chips, and there simply isn’t room or the budget for more. In AT&T’s case, the phones will need to support the company’s several flavors of 2G and 3G networks (EDGE and HSPA+), its forthcoming LTE network which will run on two different bands of spectrum (700 MHz and AWS, needing a separate chip for each), as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth — we are guessing that in a pinch if you are cold you can turn on all the radios and let the phone heat your house.

Customers who have purchased 4G devices from Sprint or Clearwire are also subject to this problem, mainly because their 4G implementation uses WiMAX at a frequency that no other major carrier has yet implemented. The Clearwire/Sprint network right now covers 71-plus markets, while the Verizon network is at 45 city markets and 60 airports, with plans to add another 140 to 170 by the end of the year. AT&T has not yet said how many markets it plans to cover with LTE in 2011, only that it will launch some services before year-end.

So for 4G data customers — when you are in your provider’s coverage area you are fine, but when you are roaming about you may be slowed back down to the world of 3G. And it’s going to be that way for a while.

Despite the friendly face it is putting on its strategy to beef up wireless reception in Palo Alto, AT&T is facing some rough local resistance to its implementation ideas from citizens of the cultural center of Silicon Valley.

Though AT&T has earned city approval to install a new regular cellular antenna as well as some new antennas to support a public Wi-Fi hotspot zone, its actions have riled some residents including one longtime Internet technologist who has threatened to cut off the city government’s free Internet access due to his opposition to the cell-tower approval process. There was also heated debate about the Wi-Fi hotspot plan, which eventually won city approval in part because of AT&T’s pledge to install the gear without entering the building the antennas will be mounted on.

So far there has been no city decision on a wider-reaching AT&T plan to install numerous smaller cellular antennas in a technology deployment known as Outdoor Distributed Antenna System (ODAS), which like the other ideas is aimed chiefly at improving AT&T’s cellular reception in the California city that is home to a wide range of Silicon Valley leaders and influencers, and sits next door to Stanford University. The Palo Alto deployment is part of a wide-ranging AT&T strategy to increase the number of DAS deployments nationwide, but like the other ideas it is running into some local opposition.

While the smaller DAS antennas (which can be mounted on existing structures like power poles) might seem more aesthetically acceptable, several residents feared that by agreeing to allow AT&T to install the antennas the city could be jeopardizing a long-standing plan to bury utility lines and eliminate overhead poles. According to one news report, the Palo Alto city council may “step back and discuss a larger, citywide approach” to cellular implementation plans, based on the contentious nature of some recent applications like AT&T’s.

Samsung’s mobile hotspot for Verizon’s LTE network. Credit: Verizon.

Samsung’s portable Wi-Fi hotspot for the Verizon LTE network is now available from the Verizon Wireless website, for $100 after rebates and a 2-year contract; however those wishing for an unlimited plan are out of luck, since the mobile hotspot will use the same data plans as the already launched LTE USB modems — $50 for 5 GB per month, or $80 for 10 GB per month.

The device (which we saw working live in the wild last week at CTIA) will be in stores Thursday, according to Verizon. In addition to LTE access it also provides backward-compatible access to Verizon’s 3G network so it can be a reliable broadband supplier to as many as five Wi-Fi devices you may have in your arsenal. For road warriors who spend a lot of time in major airports this device may be just the ticket since Verizon’s early LTE rollouts have made airport access a priority. It will be interesting to see how sales of this device stack up against the first offering in this arena, the Sprint Overdrive, which is now in its second iteration. Let the 4G pocketspots battle begin!