LTE: the HTC Thunderbolt launched by Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless has gone on the offensive by offering their first LTE Smartphone – the HTC Thunderbolt, usable on their new very high speed mobile network opened last December.

US carrier Verizon Wireless hasn’t wasted any time with their LTE mobile network (Long Term Evolution) offering very high speed mobile speeds (between 5 and 12 Mbps download speeds and between 2 and 5 Mbps upload). While at its launch in December 2010 the carrier was only able to offer LTE USB adaptors, the CES 2011 show in Las Vegas in January has now made numerous LTE Smartphone’s available.

The first of these has today been launched, with this being the HTC Thunderbolt – an Android Smartphone with a large 4.3" display, allowing you to benefit from multimedia content via the mobile network (it also comes with a nice stand on the back).

While the carrier recently pointed out that there were still some minor problems that needed to be resolved before they will be able to fully exploit the functions available on LTE Smartphone’s, this first commercial launch is nevertheless sends a strong message to other carriers that they are ready to start placing users on their network, despite its youth.


Very high speed Smartphone’s
While not being the first manufacturer to release an LTE telephone (they were beaten Samsung who released a handset for carrier MetroPCS), the Taiwanese manufacturer nevertheless has the honour of being the first to offer a model with large scale manufacturing on what will be one of the largest LTE networks in the world.

The HTC Thunderbolt, running Android 2.2 Froyo (and the HTC Sense interface), has already been made available in the carriers online shop, with its presence in retail outlets commencing on the 17th of March 2011 for 249.99 dollars with a two year subscription.

Users will have to take a voice subscription beginning at 39.99 dollars a month in addition to a separate LTE data subscription costing 29.99 dollars a month to be able to benefit from the very high speed mobile data connection (which can also be shared with other devices via the mobile hotspot function), with the device also being compatible with the carriers 3G CDMA2000 network.