First spotted by FierceWireless, the deal gives customers signing up for its $80 unlimited-talk-and-text smartphone plans 2 GB of data to consume each month rather than just the standard 1 GB. The major catch is that data must come off its 3G network — no LTE phones allowed. After years of ceding prepaid to its competitors has Verizon finally seen the light of contract-free mobility? If it has, then Verizon is attacking prepaid in a strange way. Even with the limited time promotion, its prepaid plans are by far the most expensive in the market – you can get the same plan anywhere from $20 to $30 a month less at a slew of other carriers (and in many cases access to much faster data networks).

What Verizon likely sees here is an opportunity to find a second life for its 3G CDMA EV-DO networks. Now that Apple has found LTE religion, almost the entirety of Verizon’s smartphone portfolio sports a 4G radio, which means its data traffic will quickly migrate off its old 3G networks. Big Red still needs those EV-DO networks as back up in areas where its 4G service is unavailable, but those areas are quickly becoming few and far between. Verizon plans to have LTE in every place it offers 3G by the end of 2013, and thanks to its LTE in Rural America program it will have 4G in places it’s never before built a CDMA network.

Verizon’s LTE network (yellow) will eventually grow to encompass its 3G network (red).

So in just year or two Verizon will have a largely empty 3G network. Eventually it will shutter those CDMA systems, replacing them with 4G technologies, but that could take the remainder of the decade if not longer. Verizon needs those CDMA networks for its legacy voice services, and its planned launch of an IP-based voice-over-LTE service is still on the drawing board. In short, that 3G data network is going nowhere so it behooves Verizon to find ways of filling it.

That may be why Verizon is getting the prepaid bug after so many years of ignoring the market. Prepaid isn’t just for the budget-minded or credit-challenged anymore, and say what you will about Verizon’s pricing and data plans, but it consistently scores high marks from consumers for customer service, reliability and quality of service.

Verizon may be thinking there’s room in the market for a “premium” prepaid operator and that it’s just the carrier to fill that niche. It just so happens to have a rapidly emptying 3G network to serve those customers. Sprint got the same idea when it started relegating WiMAX to its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile prepaid customers, reserving its new LTE network for those on its contracts.

Still, premium subscribers will expect a premium service. Sub-megabit 3G connections just won’t cut it, especially if T-Mobile or Sprint is offering far faster network connections for far cheaper prices. Verizon will need to drop prices a lot more if it hopes to make any kind of dent in the sans-contract market. But if it reserves its 3G network for prepaid users – along with contract customers using “dumbphones” – then it can afford to slash plan costs. The networks investment is already sunk, and that spectrum will be tied up for years to come. Any money it can make off of 3G is just gravy.

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As you can see from the first map, MetroPCS owns some big swathes of spectrum, but like most carriers it hasn’t deployed networks throughout its license territory. Instead its focused on the bigger markets and populated regions of its footprint.

Pay particular close attention to the darker splotches on the map. In some regions MetroPCS owns considerable spectral bandwidth – in some cases more than 50 MHz – but for the most part those dense concentrations of airwaves aren’t in big cities. Still T-Mobile is going to get a 20 MHz capacity boost in most of the cities where MetroPCS currently operates. Plus T-Mobile will be able to take advantage of Metro’s unused airwaves outside of the big cities, if it feels the needs.

The second Mosaik map shows where the coverage of T-Mobile and MetroPCS actually overlaps. These are live networks as opposed to spectrum holdings so where there’s color you should actually see a signal. In those purple areas, T-Mobile’s network is going to a significant LTE capacity boost. In many areas it will have enough spare PCS airwaves to build out new dual-carrier HSPA+ networks.

The third and fourth Mosaik maps should be viewed together. The third shows all of T-Mobile’s current spectrum holdings before MetroPCS is layered on, showing where T-Mo owns frequencies but necessarily where it’s built networks.

The last map is the two carriers’ combined spectral holdings, which should give you an idea of the networks they could potential build.

Pay attention to the red parts. These are what T-Mobile is really after in the merger. In those red regions it will have more than 70 MHz of overall capacity, which frankly is going to make T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray do backflips. With that much capacity there’s frankly no network AT&T or Verizon can build that T-Mobile can’t match. Depending on how quickly the new ‘T-Metro’ moves, it could beat its larger competitors to those cities with a big honking 40 MHz network that puts any 4G network so far deployed to shame.

But also note that those red patches only cover a handful of big cities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Detroit, Atlanta and Miami. Even in cities where T-Mo stands to gain substantial frequencies like New York City and Philadelphia, the new merged carrier won’t cross that 70 MHz threshold. MetroPCS is going to give T-Mobile a lot of capacity in some key markets, but its not a spectrum panacea.

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Verizon also said it would expand its existing coverage on Thursday in 38 other market, and though it didn’t reveal an exact number of POPs covered, the U.S. Census pegs the current population at 314 million, meaning Verizon has placed at least 235 million people under its 4G umbrella. The carrier’s year-end target is 260 million POPs covered.

Verizon remains well ahead of the competition. AT&T has launched LTE in 51 markets. By its last official count AT&T was covering 74 million people, though it’s launched in several new cities since and plans to double its coverage by year-end. Sprint just rolled out its first five LTE regional clusters in July and plans to add a sixth city, Baltimore, by the end of August. It expects to have a 123 million people covered by the end of the year. T-Mobile won’t launch until 2013.

The new Verizon markets are: Hot Springs, Ark.; Redding, Calif.; Valdosta and Waycross, Ga.; Centralia and Danville, Ill.; Parsons, Salina and Topeka, Kan.; Alexandria and Monroe, La.; Pittsfield, Mass.; Battle Creek and Muskegon, Mich.; Mankato and Worthington, Minn.; Joplin and Sedalia, Mo.; Bismarck, Grand Forks and Minot, N.D.; Chillicothe, Ohio; Reading, Pa.; Aberdeen, S.D.; Laredo, Odessa and Texarkana, Texas; Brattleboro and White River Junction, Vt.; Charlottesville, Va.; Longview, Wash.; and Eau Claire, La Crosse and Manitowoc, Wis.

The markets in which Verizon has expanded its 4G coverage are: Los Angeles and Santa Barbara/Santa Maria, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Macon/Warner Robins, Ga.; Bloomington, Champaign/Urbana, Decatur/Effingham and Springfield, Ill.; Elkhart, Ind.; Des Moines, Iowa City and Sioux City, Iowa; Dodge City, Garden City and Great Bend, Kan.; Lexington and Louisville, Ky.; New Orleans; Boston; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.; Missoula, Mont.; Las Vegas; Manchester/Nashua, N.H.; Las Cruces, N.M.; New York City; Cincinnati; Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Salt Lake City/Ogden, Utah; Roanoke, Va.; Charleston, W.Va.; and Green Bay, Wis.  Additional areas include: Little Rock, Ark., expanding into Batesville, Ark.; Tallahassee, Fla., expanding into Thomasville, Ga.; Burley, Idaho, expanding into Twin Falls, Idaho; Chicago, expanding into DeKalb, Ill.; and Cedar City, Utah, expanding into St. George, Utah.

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U.S. Cellular is offering two monthly data plans and they’re both on the expensive side: $15 for 200 MB and $55 for 5 GB without two-year contracts. The overage charges are a even more steep: 25 cents per MB. That works out to $250 per gigabyte, while most major operators are charging only $10 per gigabyte. U.S. Cellular is also imposing a $200 overage cap, preventing customers from racking up too many extra data charges.

Pricing on the tablet itself varies depending on where you are. U.S. Cellular is selling the Tab 10.1 for $100 cheaper in markets where it will has LTE today or will have LTE by the end of the year. So if you live in Greenville, N.C., or Lawson, Okla., you can buy the device for $499, but if you’re in Chicago or any other market not scheduled for 4G in 2012, it costs $599. Samsung is offering a $100 rebate on both devices, but since U.S. Cellular isn’t doing contracts, there is no further subsidy. Update: While the tablets will, in fact, be subject to two-year contracts, U.S. Cellular will also sell an unsubsidized version of the Tab for $799 throughout it’s territory for customers who want month-to-month plans.

U.S. Cellular said the $100 discount in 4G markets is a limited time promotion. It’s trying to promote its new LTE service, but U.S. Cellular may also have an larger strategic motive. It’s a lot cheaper to deliver data over LTE than over its CDMA 3G networks, but it’s charging the same rates for both plans, so the more customers using the tablet on 4G the better.

As for speeds, don’t expect the breathtaking bandwidth we have witnessed over Verizon Wireless and AT&Ts’ new networks. U.S. Cellular only has half the 4G spectrum of its bigger counterparts, so it’s marketing average speeds of 3-6 Mbps. If Verizon and AT&T’s networks are any indication though, customers will often experience much faster connectivity than what U.S. Cellular is advertising. Verizon markets its LTE network as averaging 5-12 Mbps, but in dense markets like New York City, 4G customers have clocked connections well over 60 Mbps.

U.S. Cellular’s first smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S Aviator, is scheduled to go on sale in April, and a U.S. Cellular spokesman confirmed the launch is on track. Though the carrier hasn’t specified the exact cities and towns, in the latter half of the year it’s expanding into markets in Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. If you’re in U.S. Cellular’s coverage area and want to know if your town is on the LTE list, you can try a simple trick: Enter your zip code into the Tab 10.1 purchase page. If the tablet comes up with a $499 price, you’re area is scheduled for LTE. If it’s $599 you’re out of luck – at least this year.

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Verizon is expanding its 2012 target to 260 million pops covered, which is only 10 million more than it previously projected, but it will leave the operator only 30 million people short of completely overlaying its CDMA network with 4G as well as bring the mobile broadband service to 400 cities, large and small. Verizon has stated it eventually plans to offer LTE everywhere it has 3G services. To bolster that commitment, Verizon revealed 7 new small LTE markets scheduled for launch on Thursday and that it has expanded coverage in 17 existing markets.

Speaking to Dow Jones, CTO David Small also backed up commitments that a Verizon marketing exec made at CES to introduce only new smartphones with LTE connectivity going forward; older 3G-only models may still be an option (think iPhone 4S), but new devices must have LTE. There are few remaining doubts that the forthcoming iPhone will have LTE connectivity as Apple is supporting the technology in the new iPad, but Verizon probably just dispelled those that remain. Even Verizon wouldn’t be so bold as to take such a stance if it weren’t positive the iPhone would include LTE radios.

Here are the new markets launching on Thursday: Dothan and Enterprise, Ala.; Naples, Fla.; Greenville, N.C.; Altus and Durant, Okla.; and Longview/Marshall, Texas. In addition, Verizon is expanding its LTE network in Washington, D.C.; Elkhart, Ind.; Baltimore, Md.; Columbus, Miss.; Northern N.J.; Wilmington, N.C.; Duncan, Okla.; Allentown/Bethlehem, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Scranton/Wilkes Barre, Pa.; Hilton Head, S.C.; Cleveland, Tenn.; Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; and Kenosha, Madison and Milwaukee, Wis.

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As you might expect from a town that thrives off a tourism and seasonal residents – 2 million visitors a year frequent the island – maintaining Hilton Head’s scenic views is a big priority for its local government, and  hulking cell towers tend to mar those vistas. As a result, tough restrictions on where cell towers can go have prevented the operators from expanding their networks, leading to poor and sometimes non-existent reception all over the island.

That may seem like a necessary trade-off for the sake or preserving the community’s standards, but the policy has now come into direct conflict with the town’s economic livelihood. It’s bad enough that residents have to endure poor service, but vacationers have come to expect good cellular coverage, especially the conference and executive retreat crowd. These days you can get decent signal on a cruise ship at sea, so why not in Hilton Head?

There’s an app for that – many of them

Hilton Head’s town council created a task force to find a solution to the coverage problem, and it reached out to RootMetrics, a Seattle-based wireless network-testing firm that uses crowdsourcing to collect much of its data. The task force recruited local volunteers to download Root’s network testing app on their smartphones and then fanned them across the island to test for signal strength, call success and data coverage and speed.

They came back with 20,000 data points, which Root compiled into detailed maps showing just where the problem spots lay. As you can see, Verizon fared much better than AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, but there were still several problem spots in Verizon’s network as well.

RootMetrics CEO Bill Moore said that the detailed coverage maps gave Hilton Head the objective data it needed to make its case to the operators for more coverage. “But they also understood this wasn’t entirely a carrier problem,” Moore said. “Zoning and neighborhood aesthetic issues were also part of the problem, and there was a recognition that they needed to be more flexible to get carriers on board.”

According to the local paper, The Island Packet, the town council approved several of the task force’s recommendations to streamline cell tower permits and leases. Now all eyes turn to the carriers.

Lighting a fire under the operators

Verizon Wireless spokesperson Karen Schulz said that the operator has been talking with Hilton Head community leaders for years about improving coverage and quality, but there “have been some challenges.” Schulz said, however, Verizon was encouraged by Hilton Head’s new willingness to work directly with the carriers to solve their mutual problem.

That progress has resulted in plans to launch a new cell site in the southern part of the island. In addition, Verizon is working with a gated community Hilton Head Plantation to deploy a new LTE distributed antenna system, Schulz said, which would replace a normally imposing tower with numerous low slung antennas scattered throughout the neighborhood. Schulz said there are still other problem spots throughout the island, but Verizon plans to work with the community to resolve them.

“We really want to work hand-in-hand with them to not only have good quality service, but to make sure they also enjoy a good quality of life,” she said. “Aesthetics are definitely important.”

AT&T was less specific about its plans to improve coverage on the island, though AT&T gave us the following statement: “Going forward, AT&T is looking forward to working with the town of Hilton Head and the mayor’s task force in order to provide enhanced coverage for our customers in the area.”

While Hilton Head’s coverage problems are far from solved, Root’s Moore said he was surprised by how the community was able to mobilize to make their case before the carriers. In the past, towns with poor coverage or dead zones have had to rely solely on subjective data when arguing for better service, he said.

“If government and the populace can work together and the work cooperatively with the wireless industry it shows you can solve a lot of these problems,” Moore said.

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From the Windstream press release:

• PAETEC shareholders will receive 0.460 shares of Windstream common stock for each PAETEC share owned under the terms of the agreement which was approved by the boards of directors of both companies.
• Windstream expects to issue approximately 73 million shares of stock valued at approximately $891 million, based on the company’s closing stock price on July 29, 2011.
• Windstream also will assume or refinance PAETEC’s net debt of approximately $1.4 billion at the time of closing.
• PAETEC stockholders are expected to own approximately 13 percent of the combined company upon closing of the transaction.
• The combined company would have had $6.1 billion in total revenue and about $2.4 billion in adjusted operating income.

Stifel Nicolaus telecom analyst Christopher King writes in a note emailed to his clients this morning:

Windstream will experience a slight increase in leverage temporarily, excluding the synergies expected, as leverage would increase to 3.7x on an LTM basis, however the company expects the acquisition to lower its dividend payout ratio, and improve its growth profile, with roughly 70% of total consolidated pro forma revenues coming from business and broadband segments–and roughly 63% from business alone.

PAETEC’s 7 data centers would be combined with Windstream’s current 13 data centers, to offer widespread coverage across the eastern half of the country, with a national 100,000-mile fiber network.

While the modest increase in leverage somewhat concerns us in the near term, those fears are more than offset by the synergy opportunities, as well as the NOL tax benefits, with management expecting to use approximately $130 million in NOLs in each of the next 5 years.

PAETEC deal is a way for Windstream to add heft to its CLEC ambitions. It has previously bought Nuvox and KDL, but those were small deals compared to this deal as it catapults the company as a player alongside the big boys. Rob Powell of Telecom Ramblings blog writes:

Add all of them up and the CLEC business will contribute as much as 70% of Windstream’s $6B in run-rate annual revenue. The company’s enterprise business overall will clearly be their primary focus from here on out, and they obviously haven’t run into any big problems being both an ILEC and a CLEC thus far. The fiber assets are quite complimentary, as the KDL assets fit right in the middle of the Intellifiber assets on the east coast and in the rust belt and plus the former McLeodUSA fiber further out in the Midwest, while reaching southward.

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We’ll be providing live updates via Twitter, too, so check in with @theappleblog.

Here we are. All set for the big event. Apple put on a big spread at the cafeteria in Building 4 but I am hungry for good stuff Steve us going to share with us.

10.00 AM: Waiting for Steve.
10.01 AM: Here he is. Applause. We got some fun stuff to share with you this morning. It would be nice to bring in engineers to demo this to you. I would like to start with the state of the mac.
10.02: Tim Cook is on stage. Apple’s revenue, Mac made 33 percent of the revenue last year and it is a significant number by itself. That is $22 billion, the Mac company as a standalone company would be $110 on Fortune 500 companies. 13.7 million mac in FY 2010, 5x 2005 and 50 million users. We are growing 2.5 X the market. US consumer market, we have 20.7 percent

10.04: One in PC sold in retail in US is a Macintosh. We have a vibrant developer community. 600,000 registered Mac Developers. Adding 30,000 developers a month. We have developers like Valve (people behind Steam)

10.05: Autodesk is on a Mac and we have coveted that and we couldn’t be more pleased. We have developers who continue to develop on Mac. Office 2011 and Outlook on Mac, it is exceptionally good.
10.06: Fueling the Mac momentum is the incredible push in the Apple retail. 75 million visitors and sold 2.8 million mac in last year. 50 percent are new to Mac. 318 stores in 11 countries. Stores in China are highest trafficked of any of our stores.

10.08: Steve is back! Moving on to new products. iLife is widely regarded as the best suite of digital life applications. You can do amazing things with photos, videos, music. We keep improving it every year. We are now introducing iLife 11.

10.09: iPhoto 11 which has Facebook enhancements, full screen modes, made it really easy to email photos from within iPhone. New slideshows and big leap in books. We are printing 2 million (photo) books every years. We are adding Letterpress cards to this. Phil Schiller is on stage demoing it. New full screen places view. Location oriented photo collections are pretty awesome.

10.22: Steve is back! That is awesome. This is why we do what we do.  Recaps iPhoto. We are really excited about these new features.

10.23: iMovie 11. The number one request was better audio editing and we can do extremely sophisticated editing easily. All new audio editing. One step effects. People finder and news and sports themes and the ability to construct movie trailers without much effort. On stage, Randy Ubillois, chief architect of video applications.

10.35: Demo of iMovie is over. Sharing in YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo.

10.37: New Garageband 11 and it helps you fix the rhythm in your music. It has stuff like Flex Time, Groove Matching , More Guitar amps and more. Apple product marketing Xander Soren is on stage and demoing the new software. Groove Matcher is like spell checker for bad rhythms.

10.46: 5 million people are using Garageband.

10.47: iLife 11 — all this amazing engineering has gone into these products. Free with new macs and cost $49 for upgrades. It is available today.

10.48: Steve just gave props to the engineering team behind iLife 11

10.49: Since we have introduced in 4 months. 19 million devices with Facetime. #1 request is to do Facetime calling from and to Mac. It is here. Steve demoing it. This is so simple. Nothing to set up. Simple demo. I think people are going to like it.

10.51: We are going to beta release of Facetime for Mac today. Start Facetime calling. New Logo too.

10:52: The entre for today, sneak peak of where we are going with Mac. Seven releases in one year. Today we are giving you a preview of the eight version of Mac OS X. It is called Lion.

10.53: What we have done is started with Mac OS X, created a version called iOS and invented new things. We have perfected it and now it is used in iPad. We are inspired by those innovations in iPhone and iPad and bring them back to Mac OS X. We want to bring those “back to the mac.”

10.54: Multitouch gestures can be important on the Mac too. App store has revolutionized and why not Mac too. Full screen apps. App Home Screens. Apps on the iPad on autosave and data is constantly saved and when you launch apps, they auto resume. And that be great on Mac too.

10.56: Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical, but after a short time, you start to fatigue. It is ergonomically terrible. Hence we have pads. And that is what we are doing with notebooks. A multitouch trackpad in a mouse and now pure play device.

10.57: 7 Billions apps have been downloaded from the App store. We are brining to back to the mac and we will have a Mac app store. It will best place to discover apps. One click downloads. Same free and paid apps. (70/30 split) and automatic installation and automatic app updates. Apps licenses for use on all your personal macs.

10.59: Four cool inventions – Expose, Full Screen Apps, Dashboard and Spaces — and this is great but as we have added full screen apps so we have done is combined them and it is called Mission Control and navigate the mac. Craig Federighi, VP of Mac Engineering.

11.04: The app home screen in OS-X Lion. looks pretty bad and I am not sure I like it. Bleh! I like the full screen mode in apps and it makes good use of the screen estate.

11.06: Mission Control is pretty sweet and I want it now. One click access to all apps.

11.08: Steve is back. Really excited about it. Again, a whole new way of getting apps and launching and finding apps. We will unveil it over time. Our plan is to release it in Summer 2011.

11.09: Mac App store is going to great for user and we were going to launch it on Snow Leopard and will launch in 90 days from today. We are taking app submissions in November.

11.11: There is one more thing and it back to the mac theme. Virtuous circle of creating iOS and now being back to Mac. Just like that philiopsohy it can have benefit in hardware. When Macbook meets an iPad.

11.12: iPad has instant on, great battery life, amazing standby time, thin and light and no optical or hard drives. What would happen if a Macbook and an iPad hooked up? It is the most amazing thing we have created. Macbook Air. It is gorgeous and it is the future of notebooks. It is really stunning and it is really small. It is 0.68 inch thin and at the narrowed point it is 0.11 inch and weighs 2.9 lbs.

11.14: Full unibody. 13.3 inch and high-res LED display and has more pixels than Macbook Pro 15 inch. 1440 X 900pixels. Full size Multi-Touch trackpad. No optical drive and no hard drive. We have gone to flash storage.

11.15: We have gone to flash storage. Why? it is instant on. It is unto 2x faster and it is 90% smaller and lighter. It is completely silent. More reliable. We are the largest user of Flash memory in the world. 7 hours of battery life on wireless web and 30 days standby time.

11.17: we are putting Flash right on the board. 802.11n WiFi, Core2 Duo. And a massive battery. We have taken eveyrhthing we have learned from miniaturizing from iPad and iPhone and crammed it into a board.

11.18: A younger brother,11.6 inch. Smaller. 2.3 pounds. High res 1366 cx 768 pixels. 5 hours of battery life and same 30 days of standby time. We see these as next generation of MacBooks. It is going to cost $999 for 11.6 model. More pricer models. 13.3 inch top end will cost $1599. Both are available starting today.

Guess who is going to the apple store right now!

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The Park Meadows location is my local Apple Store with [previously] awful cell reception – what’s yours? Have you seen the AT&T coverage improve yet?

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