Sidecut Reports

The long-awaited details of Verizon’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G wireless service will emerge Dec. 1, in a press conference call that Big Red announced today. The main speaker will be senior veep and chief wireless technology officer Tony Melone (in photo), who appears to have taken over the lead-wireless-spokesperson role from Dick Lynch, who is CTO of the “Big V” Verizon, and not just Verizon Wireless.

What exactly will Verizon announce Wednesday? With the launch cities and airport markets already detailed back in October, what’s left are two critical components — pricing and data caps. We have no inside information so the best we can hazard is a guess that Verizon won’t stray too much from the existing wireless-data status quo. The official Sidecut Reports guess on pricing and plans is:

Devices: $100 (after rebate) for either of the USB modems that Verizon will offer. Any and all are almost guaranteed to be hybrid 3G/4G modems, since Mr. Melone told us that they would be so back in the spring. Makes sense, since Verizon’s 4G network will be incomplete at the start and the last thing Verizon wants is a modem that doesn’t connect to something.

Pricing plans: Our best guess in the pricing arena is that whatever Verizon starts with, it will be changed quite quickly since pricing in the mobile-broadband market is a moving target with lots of possible tweaks. But coming out of the gate I would look for two plans — one something in the 1 GB/2 GB of data download allowed per month for $50, and an “unlimited” or “We really mean unlimited up to 5 GB per month” for $70 or $80.

Our analysis for these guesses? With a huge LTE promotion on tap for CES, where Verizon has already promised that it will show off LTE phones, tablets and portable hotspots, there’s no need for Big Red to leave dough on the table for the business-professional audience that will be its first customers for 4G data services. The $70 or $80 per-month charge will likely be sold as a “premium” or “3G plus” service, and at $10 to $20 above the current average 3G data charge that’s a justifiable expense.

Possible surprises include perhaps some sort of prepaid data plan, but with the cost of the devices likely to remain high (until more LTE networks appear and the manufacturing economies of scale kick in) it’s doubtful that any consumer would find it worthwhile to buy an “unlocked” LTE device for $500 or $600 just so they don’t have to sign a 2-year contract. The first adopters for LTE 4G already have a mobile-data component locked in to their monthly communications budget, so contract don’t scare them. Though we aren’t expecting one for the initial launch, a 4G LTE portable hotspot would really rev up Verizon’s iPad campaign and give it another tool to bludgeon poor AT&T with.

(Follow me @paulkaps on Twitter for live tweets during the press conference call. Guaranteed to entertain if you are a 4G kinda geek.)

Call it the intersection of preparation and opportunity — Clearwire today took a swipe at the network troubles that have been limiting the communication features of Apple iPads and iPhones with the introduction of the “iSpot,” a personal 4G/Wi-Fi hotspot that has an introductory service price of $25 per month for unlimited data use.

The device, in a white case to match the signature Apple casing, is a rebranded version of earlier devices from Clearwire that connect to the provider’s 4G WiMAX wireless broadband network on the back end to provide a Wi-Fi “cloud” for up to eight other devices.

While the device’s retail price is $99.99, Clearwire is offering it online for sale until tomorrow for the price of $29.99. The contracts advertised are month-to-month with no long-term obligation.

Though we haven’t spoken to Clearwire yet about the device, it is clearly designed to take advantage of the hobbled cellular data plans available for Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad via Apple’s exclusive agreement in the U.S. with AT&T. Though the device is marketed as an iPad/iPhone/iPod touch companion, we are guessing that any other device with a Wi-Fi connection can use the services made available from the portable router. UPDATE: According to the Clear blog, the device is actually locked for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch use only at the $25 rate; to use other equipment it needs to be unlocked by Clearwire folks and you will pay the regular service fees. From the Clear blog:

There has been some confusion out on the interwebs about what devices the iSpot can work with. To clarify, if you take advantage of the $25/mo service plan, your iSpot will only work with iPod touches, iPads, and iPhones. If you want it unlocked to work with any wi-fi enabled devices (laptops, Macbooks, smartphones etc) our Customer Service team can unlock it it you decide to go with the same monthly service plan that is available for the CLEAR Spot 4G.

The Sidecut take says — why lock this thing at all? The more open the better, why introduce the confusion? After all, it’s not like people who buy Apple products are necessarily budget-sensitive, so why give them a better deal than other device holders?

The question came near the end of AT&T’s second-quarter earnings call today, and apparently was too late for many people to notice — but according to AT&T, it has activated somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 iPad 3G devices, perhaps disproving its own CEO’s contention that most iPad users would stick to Wi-Fi connections.

According to AT&T senior executive vice president and chief financial officer Rick Lindner, Ma Bell was surprised by the amount of interest shown in the iPad by its business customers, especially since big-company CIOs had been reluctant to approve iPhones for corporate purchases when the phone first arrived. Lindner’s findings echoed those found by Apple itself, which talked about enterprise interest during its earnings call earlier this week.

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