11:05 AM Chicago is becoming a 4G city with AT&T's LTE showing up, but the hand-off from LTE to 3G will be just as important as speed in the early days
It look the equipment vendors a long time to stabilize the handoff functionality between different 3G base stations. Now, adding another access technology to it will make things more messy. I would assume it would be a very patchy hand-offs (especially a large scale hand-off with multiple users) for the first year before the operators/equipment provides takes this real data and optimize their network.
For most part, web browsing should be OK as the users will not see any difference. Skype call/video call is another story.
I would assume that the operators are still using their 3G/2G for voice. So, voice will not be affected even when data moves from 4G to 3G, and especially tablets this is not an issue.
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