According to a Reuters report, Vodafone chief Arun Sarin has confirmed that both Verizon and Vodafone would use the same cellular standard, with the caveat that it would be at least 2015 before complete integration occurs between both companies.
Verizon has been known to support Qualcomm’s UMB (EVDO Rev. C) standard, although during the Goldman Sachs technology conference where the announcement was made yesterday, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg approved the decision, citing extensive growth with a common platform, a surprising move by the company generally seen as a staunch backer of CDMA and generally unconcerned with prior attempts by Vodafone to align both companies.
The technology being investigated is W-CDMA/LTE, the 3GSM migration path to OFDM based technologies currently in the beginning stages of development that is similar to WiMax.
LTE is not expected to be commercially available until 2010-2011.
Both companies are also known to be currently investigating the possibility of WiMax as both companies seek to find a standard that would encourage growth and more opportunities for interoperability, but no firm decision has been made on network type or technology.
Article and headline corrected to reflect proper context of information.
[…] and investment in the burgeoning standard by the carrier than was previously thought since the announcement of the move to LTE with partner Vodafone in […]