We all can’t be wrong, so we are an hour away from the Verizon iPhone announcement, yet many questions remain about unlimited data, tethering, mobile hotspot, simultaneous voice and data, and international roaming.
Verizon is confident enough in their network to use unlimited data as a way to compete against AT&T’s 2GB cap. There will be tethering for a monthly cost, there will be hotspots as well. There will be no Talk and data at the same time because CDMA just can’t do it. LTE can but I am pretty sure the new iPhone will not be LTE.
Currently Verizon’s EVDO Rev-A 3G network doesn’t support simultaneous voice and data. If you’re surfing the web — or doing anything else that uses data — and a phone call comes in, your data connection gets dropped. The Verizon iPhone launching tomorrow probably won’t have LTE and certainly won’t have EVDO Rev-B, and while there’s been some noise about simultaneous voice and data over an updated EVDO Rev-A network, there’s been no evidence to data that Verizon has rolled it out.
So the Verizon iPhone probably won’t support simultaneous voice and data. Since iOS 4 also introduced background data API for things like turn-by-turn navigation, it could limit the ability of cloud-based apps providing voice directions while you’re on a phone call as well.