iPhone 4 Launch Officially Announced by Verizon Wireless, No LTE / 4G

After years of wait and speculation, Verizon Wireless announced today at 11AM EST in the New York's Lincoln Center that it will be offering the world's most popular (for now) smart phone on the the largest mobile phone network in the US.

According to accounts of the announcement, the iPhone 4 will have the same specs as the AT&T model.  It looks like the antenna will be redesigned to be "optimized to work on the CDMA network", so hopefully there will not be an Antennagate like there was with the iPhone 4 launch on AT&T's network last year.

The Verizon/CDMA version of the iPhone will offer mobile hotspot wifi connections for up to 5 devices. There is sure to be an extra charge for the mobile hotspot feature, just as there is on current Verizon Wireless Android devices.

The biggest piece of information from this launch announcement is the lack of LTE / 4G technology in the new Verizon iPhone 4.  4G/LTE is the new, very high speed wireless network that was launched by Verizon Wireless in December of 2010. LTE offers download speeds up to 100Mbps and upload speeds up to 50Mbps.  Real world data rates are between 7-32 Mbps going down and 1-12 Mbps shooting up.  Additionally, LTE also being adopted as a world wide standard by many wireless companies (including AT&T). In the future LTE phone will be true "world phones" and much more common than the specialized dual radio (CDMA and GSM) verzions of Verizon's current world phones.

Executives at the launch announcement suggested that incorporating LTE/4G would have forced design changes in the iPhone 4 that would have significantly delayed the launch of the iPhone on Verizon Wireless.  The decision was made to give consumers what they wanted (an iPhone on Verizon) with the 3G CDMA network technology earlier as opposed to more delays with the iPhone/4G/LTE.

According to the announcement, current Verizon Wireless customer will be able to pre-order the Verizon iPhone on February 3, 2011.  The rest of the world will be able to get one on February 10, 2011.  Currently, all Verizon iPhones will require a 2 year contract  Pricing will be $199 for the 16GB version, and $299 for the 32GB version.

So, if you absolutely must have a iPhone on the Verizon network, then by all means fight the crowds and wait time by ordering one on  2/3/11 or 2/10/11. Be careful though, because you will have to enter into a 2 year contract and 2 years is an eternity in mobile smartphone world.

I suggest that if you can be patient, that you wait just a few more months for the 4G/LTE version of the iPhone to on Verizon Wireless. ETA is pure speculation... for now.