{"id":743765,"date":"2013-03-27T12:17:08","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T16:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=624863"},"modified":"2013-03-27T12:17:08","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T16:17:08","slug":"tiny-ntelos-will-join-the-4g-club-launching-lte-in-the-virginias-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/743765","title":{"rendered":"Tiny nTelos will join the 4G club, launching LTE in the Virginias this year"},"content":{"rendered":"

T-Mobile wasn\u2019t the only U.S. mobile operator with big LTE news this week<\/a>. nTelos, a small carrier operating in the central-eastern U.S., announced Wednesday it is constructing its own LTE network and will have a live 4G service up and running in Virginia and West Virginia later this year.<\/p>

Even if you don\u2019t happen to live in nTelos\u2019s operating territory of 6 million people in the Virginias, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio, its name might still ring a bell. That\u2019s because nTelos was one of the first small providers to land the iPhone<\/a> during Apple\u2019s big carrier partner expansion of 2012. Many people, including us, noted the irony that a tiny rural carrier could sell the iPhone, while a U.S. giant like T-Mobile could not. (T-Mobile, in addition to launching LTE this week, also joined the iPhone club<\/a>).<\/p>

nTelos has tapped Alcatel-Lucent for the whole LTE kit and caboodle. The Franco-American vendor will supply the wireless infrastructure, including its ultra-compact remote radio heads, and the LTE mobile data core. Alcatel-Lucent will also replace parts of nTelos\u2019s older 2G CDMA network with a new 3G CDMA EV-DO architecture, giving customers faster data rates when they aren\u2019t in 4G coverage.<\/p>

No word yet on where exactly in the Virginias nTelos will launch, though its headquarters in Waynesboro, Va., might be a good bet. According to RCRWireless<\/a>, nTelos holds both PCS licenses and Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) licenses, which means its devices could line up with those of Sprint or MetroPCS.<\/p>
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