To call the new phone a success would have to be an understatement, and considering the pricing changes in their line it’s clear that Apple is going to become a player very quickly. However, to be fair, news phones like the Samsung Galaxy S II have sold 10 million in their first five months and Samsung is selling other phones, too.

On an even more positive note, Sprint is saying that the iPhone demand is high which only confirms that Apple made the right decision branching out into new carriers.

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The newcomer, Sprint, seems to be the leader in this race, but it would take a lot to pry my unlimited AT&T plan away. Anyone trying Sprint or switching around their carrier?

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On an up note, if you’re willing to start sitting outside your local Apple retail store it’s likely that they will have a bit of inventory on hand for those of you not wanting to pre-order their phone.

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Not sure what this means for the long haul, but it does not appear that Verizon Wireless is being too quick to respond to this problem or the mounting frustration of their users. For many, myself included, the loss of any service above 1xRTT started yesterday evening – not this morning – and it took this long for Verizon to even acknowledge as more than a “just restart your phone” answer from #611.

On a positive note, reviewing the news, this outage marks the first major issue for Verizon’s LTE network. From my perspective it’s the first hiccup and hopefully one that will be short lived. Even at that, it’s worth it for the speed and performance (if not battery life) that I have been getting with my HTC Thunderbolt on the Verizon San Francisco Bay Area 4G LTE network.

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For most everyone that I know, the image above – showing 4G speeds in the San Francisco, Bay Area is probably all the review that is needed.  For others, you may be looking for something a little more, in which case you can feel free to continue reading my thoughts on this modem.

After quite a bit of debate about whether or not it made sense for me to upgrade from 3G to 4G, I made the jump. The first, and probably largest consideration for me was the price. I had been grandfathered around on Verizon and was still holding dear to my unlimited bandwidth account for $60.07 per month on my 3G modem. Speed wasn’t bad and the price couldn’t be beat. Best of all, coverage in the hills on the Edge network worked pretty well, at the same price, too.

The new Verizon plans for their 4G network are considerably more expensive. The highest use plan that they offer is $80 for 10GB and $10 for each additional GB of use. Most months that means $80 and taxes a month, but on some months I can imagine a $200 bill. Something that I am definitely not looking forward to.

Still, it’s time to upgrade. My decision for the UML290 was based solely on the fact that it offers an external antenna port. I frequently vacation in Truckee, CA, and the service is spotty at best. Additional antenna coverage (roughly $50 through the internet) seemed likely to help a bit in the outlying areas. It also looks a lot nicer than the comparable LG VL600, Verizon’s other in-store modem offering, and that was a definite selling point.

Like most USB modems, the Pantech plugged right into the side of my MacBook Pro and fired right up. I did have to download a new version of the VZAccess Manager, but once installed it located the modem and connected right up. Like any true geek I started up speedtest.net and ran a test to one of the “local” servers. As you can see from the image above, the results were outstanding – and after running it a few times – consistent.

47ms ping
16.13Mb/s download
12.39Mb/s upload

Interestingly, this is considerably more than what I am getting through my desktop Comcast connection, and that’s supposed to be a 20MB cable connection. Color me happy, it’s definitely exceeding my expectations.

In the box with the modem is an included USB extension with clip that allows the modem to easily connect onto the laptop display. Nice added bonus, although the USB is also a tilt-swivel variety that seems likely to connect to every piece of harware that I own.

I’ll continue using it for a while and then add some updates, but at this point in time I’m pretty sold.

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Yesterday, though, Apple sent their message to the Apple faithful and AT&T haters by asking if their network and phone would allow them to be on a call and simultaneously use the best features of their smartphone. For most, the answer would have to be no. Unfortunately, the part that Apple left out is the simple fact that on the AT&T network that is only possible when you have 3G access and AT&T’s network just isn’t that great when it comes to 3G network coverage. Small omission, but problem. Oh well, that’s not really the point, is it. The truth is nearly irrelevant – people are going to buy the iPhone regardless of whether or not it’s on AT&T or Verizon – even though they might actually prefer Verizon.

You can see Apple’s newest advertisement below – and of course this comes from YouTube where you can also find the other advertisement that delivers basically the exact same message.

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On the plus for them, though, Verizon is now carrying and marketing their 755P smartphone that will allow Verizon users to get their fix of this now aged phone.  Thanks, but no thanks.  Too little, too late in my mind.

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Up until now, Verizon Wireless has been part of a different crowd, backing technologies based on Qualcomm’s CDMA standard. LTE would be a departure from this and would move Verizon to the global GSM standard.

What does this mean for you and me? In the short term, nothing. Verizon isn’t suggesting that they’re going to roll out a new GSM network and scrap their current CDMA, but instead that they will take baby-steps (think 2010, 2011) to move into the LTE standard. In the long term, this means a lot, and I’m very excited about the potential. And that potential starts with the obvious – handsets galore. Companies like Nokia, that has long been weak in CDMA and Apple could offer products on Verizon’s network without having to completely change their product-line. Considering that Nokia is the world’s #1 mobile phone manufacturer, this might leave many thinking “about time.”

~geek