LAS VEGAS — This year, the big national wireless carriers will be racing to stake their claims in the new frontier of service: ultra-fast data access — for smart phones and laptops as well as for gadgets like tablets.
The companies are boosting their wireless data speeds and revving
up the marketing hype. They’re moving away from talking about call quality and coverage, and focusing on data speeds: megabits in place of minutes. For consumers, there are benefits in the form of faster service and cooler gadgets. Yet some of the marketing campaigns seem designed to confuse consumers about the gadgets’ speed.
At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Verizon Wireless revealed the 10 gadgets with built-in access to its new high-speed wireless data network, including smart phones, tablet and laptops. Some are to launch as early as March.
Along with Sprint Nextel Corp.’s subsidiary Clearwire Corp., Verizon is at the forefront of the move to a new network technology, designed to relay data rather than calls. Verizon’s fourth-generation, or “4G” network, went live for laptop modems in the last month.
The new wireless network is the nation’s fastest. Verizon is hoping to cash in on that advantage by selling tablets and smart phones that devour data.
One of the devices, Motorola Mobility Inc.’s Xoom tablet, will come with a 10.1-inch screen and two cameras: one for video chatting, the other for high-definition videos. The Xoom will begin selling by March. Initially, it will work with Verizon’s 3G network but will be upgradeable to work on the speedier 4G network.
Motorola’s Droid Bionic smart phone will also have two cameras, to help with videoconferencing, a data-hungry task. It will be one of the first phones with a so-called “dual-core processor” that will roughly double its computing capacity. That should help with video processing.
LG Electronics Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and HTC Corp. are bringing out similar phones for the network. Hewlett-Packard Co. is adding 4G capability to a laptop and a netbook.
There will also be two “mobile hotspot” devices for the network: small battery-powered bricks that act as Wi-Fi access points, connecting Wi-Fi-equipped computers to the 4G network.
Verizon didn’t reveal what the new devices or wireless plans will cost.
Verizon’s size — by number of subscribers, it’s the largest U.S. wireless carrier — and the quality of its network are helping it gain traction with manufacturers.
“By deciding to go early and go first to (4G), we sent a signal to the entire consumer electronics market that this technology would develop very quickly,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon’s president and chief operating officer, in a keynote address at the trade show Thursday.
There’s speculation that Verizon will get to sell a version of Apple Inc.’s iPhone this year. That would break AT&T Inc.’s exclusive hold on the most popular smart phone. But there was no talk of an iPhone from Verizon at Thursday’s events.
With or without the iPhone, Verizon’s new network is pressuring its competitors to step up their offerings. AT&T Inc. on Wednesday said it’s on track to launch its own 4G network this summer. Also, it said it will start calling its current 3G network “4G,” since it’s been upgraded to be capable of nearly 4G speeds.
T-Mobile USA said Thursday that it will upgrade its 3G network to double the possible download speeds in two-thirds of its coverage area. It started calling the network “4G” in ads last fall. It, too, revealed two tablets for its network, to launch later this year.
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