maybe the iPhone 4 really will be 4G

WARNING - UNFETTERED, UNABASHED DORKERY BELOW

Boy Genius Report is saying that Verizon is going to roll out it’s LTE network starting in november. For the uninitiated LTE stands for “Long Term Evolution” and it’s a 4G wireless network. That’s one G better than 3G. Basically, it’s faster, and runs on frequencies that will theoretically be less prone to interference. 

My biggest problem with rumors and mumblings of a Verizon iPhone was that I could never see apple engineering a CDMA iphone. Verizon has been running the same shitty CDMA voice network since it was Bell Atlantic. What the hell is CDMA you ask? Well there are lots of cell phones and not that many channels for them to use, so everyone has to share. There are a couple schemes for accomplishing this, such as Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Generally, TDMA works better plus the 1/3 of a second transmit pulses cause speakers to make that cool buzzing noise when your phone is nearby. Code Division Multiple Access allows a theoretically unlimited number of callers per frequency by making the experience shittier for everyone every time a caller is added. Long story short, CDMA sucks, though the EV-DO data they slap on top of it for their smartphones aint so bad.

LTE, however, is pretty good, so they tell me. Everyone except Sprint (and when was the last time they were relevant?) Is going with LTE for their 4G rollouts. So the fact that Verizon is deploying it in November seems to mesh nicely with the Bloomberg story about a Verizon iPhone in January. 

And here’s the worst part: I really doubt apple will engineer a CDMA iphone, so the Verizon iPhone may well be LTE only. So it might only work in the handful of markets where verizon is deploying LTE, making the only edge that verizon has - better coverage - completely irrelevant. 

Alright, I’m done dorking. We now return you to cute animals, hipster shit and whatever the hell else is going on with the internet today.