Will new 4G standard sink Sprint's plans?

Mobile execs announce One Voice LTE plan. Verizon's Lynch is second from left

A few notes on initials.  CDMA is Code Division Multiple Access, the system used by Verizon, Sprint and U.S. Cellular.  GSM is Global System for Mobile Communications and is the type of cell phone technology used by almost everyone else in the world.  GSM phones have removable SIM cards that store basic information and can be moved from handset to handset.  CDMA has quality advantages over GSM, but like Beta video is secumbing to the popularity polls.

"G" stands for generation in the mobile biz.  The first simple systems were 1G, the basic voice/text system that still dominates the United States is 2G and the faster, data-rich system most smartphones require is 3G.  Next up is 4G -- service that can rival the connection you get via a cable modem.  In the United States, Sprint was first to roll out a system, but it uses an upgrade of WiFi called WiMax.

Verizon won't give up CDMA for voice calls for a while, but this time is going with the gang.  Rather than join Sprint in WiMax, Verizon is one of more than 40 operators that have adopted the LTE system for 4G service.  This is no dream, Lynch said, but a fast-track rollout that will see final testing in Boston and Seattle within two months and consumer service to 25-30 markets by the end of the year.

That could be highly significant to newspapers and a big blow to Sprint.  For the news media, it means that high definition video could be beamed to cell phones with clarity.  It also means that a 4G dongle attached to a laptop could download anything a newspaper could throw at it, anywhere the LTE cell service is available.  The flip side of that is reporters, designers and film crews could as easily work at a coffeeshop as in the newsroom.

The key to bringing Verizon and others to the LTE table was the GMSA "One Voice" protocol that governs how voice and SMS will be handled on high speed lines.  Phone companies, after all, have to agree how they will still be phone companies.  That data follows easily.

Sprint is one of the members of the One Voice consortium, but seems to have lost the advantage it gained by being first out with 4G.