Verizon today unveiled more detail about their LTE wireless broadband launch, announcing that they’ll be offering the 5-12 Mbps service in 38 markets and 60 airports starting December 5. Most importantly, Verizon finally unveiled their pricing for the new service, which after a year filled with endless hints by executives about wanting to try something new winds up being somewhat underwhelming, traditional, and expensive.

The base pricing for LTE laptop connectivity via USB modem (there will be no smartphones at launch) is significantly more expensive than the 3G pricing they unveiled in October, though the caps are obviously higher. Verizon’s current EVDO USB modem plans come in two flavors: $40 for 250MB of usage and $60 for 5GB of usage. Verizon’s LTE pricing will now be $50 for 5GB of usage, or $80 for 10 GB of usage, with $10 per each additional GB. Sayeth big red:

Verizon Wireless customers can choose from two 4G LTE Mobile Broadband data plans: $50 monthly access for 5 GB monthly allowance or $80 monthly access for 10 GB monthly allowance, both with $10/GB overage. For laptop connectivity, two 4G LTE USB modems will be initially available: the LG VL600 is available at launch and the Pantech UML290 will be available soon, each $99.99 after $50 rebate with a new two-year agreement. Both USB modems provide backward-compatibility with Verizon Wireless’ 3G network. If laptop users travel outside of a 4G LTE coverage area, they will automatically stay connected on the company’s 3G network.

It’s interesting to note there’s not even really an entry level LTE plan (say $25 for a gig of use) after literally dozens of Verizon executive comments claiming usage-based pricing was going to be the future. We’ll assume this pricing may evolve as the company begins offering LTE smartphones, which Verizon today announced will arrive sometime in “mid-2011″. Verizon also again today confirmed these devices will initially use 3G/CDMA for voice until LTE voice standards are hashed out. As an added aside: the service will only support MS Windows based PC’s at launch.

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Verizon finally aired their first ever commercial for their upcoming LTE network during last night’s Sunday Night Football. The Stephen Spielberg-esque ad ad features a lightning bolt delivered by snail mail, and confirms rumors that the network is “coming in December.” As previously noted, Verizon’s initial launch next month will be fairly significant, the 5-12 Mbps service covering 38 markets (roughly one third of the population) and 60 airports right out of the gate. We’re still waiting on Verizon to reveal their pricing for the speedier service, which as of last week the company still claimed they weren’t sure of.

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Buoyed by the recent ITU declaration that nobody is technically deploying a 4G network here in the States, T-Mobile recently kicked off a new marketing campaign proclaiming that the carrier has the “largest 4G network.”

One cornerstone of the new campaign is apparently making fun of AT&T’s network, which has seen more than its fair share of criticism the last few years due to performance issues in markets like New York and San Francisco. Recent commercials portray AT&T as a balding, middle aged man weighing down the iPhone 4, and the latest ad in the series airing this week certainly isn’t flattering. AT&T got into a feud with Verizon last year about ads mocking AT&T 3G coverage (they even filed suit), but so far hasn’t had anything to say about T-Mobile’s campaign.

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Clearwire has kept their promise of bringing Mobile WiMax to New York City before the end of the year. Mailings are being sent out to customers informing them that Clear service “is finally available in New York City” for an initial offer of $35 a month for the first two months. The flyer amusingly offers a city of 8 million a free USB modem (usually $115) if they’re one of the first 20 to sign up for service. New York City is still only listed as a “a future Clear city” in Clear’s coverage map, and the company has yet to issue an official release, though these kinds of unofficial launches are not uncommon for the carrier.

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Verizon has made no secret of their interest in expanding beyond broadband and eventually becoming a company that offers you, well, everything including home automation and security services. To that end, Verizon this week has invested in home automation outfit 4Home, and in January at CES, Verizon and 4Home will be showing off home automation services that will work over Verizon’s upcoming LTE wireless broadband network.

Of course maybe before Verizon gets into smart refrigerators they can offer FiOS users that 802.11N-capable router they told us was supposed to arrive last month? We’ve asked for an update on that, but in the mean time you can check out some of what 4Home offers here.

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Back in July, slides shown at a T-Mobile manager’s meeting suggested the company wanted to push their 3G HSPA network toward downstream speeds of 42 Mbps. T-Mobile today confirmed those ambitions. T-Mobile’s busily deploying HSPA+ upgrades capable of 21 Mbps downstream speeds (though users see half that), and 42 Mbps speeds will arrive sometime in 2011.

While technically still just 3G, the company will be offering speeds as fast as fourth-gen services, including Verizon’s upcoming LTE service (5-12 Mbps) and Clearwire (3-6 Mbps). Granted, many users are more interested in coverage and reliability above of a few extra megabits per second.

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Nearly every major global telco plans to embrace LTE, a number of high profile major global WiMax supporters have either shifted from WiMax to LTE or shut down and WiMax’s poster children here in the States, Sprint and Clearwire, have both clearly stated they’ll jump to LTE if the wind blows that way (and it is).

That’s of course not stopping the WiMax 2 (802.16m) standard from being finalized by the IEEE this November, with initial deployments potentially in 2012. Earlier this year Clearwire stated they were in no rush to test the new standard. WiMax 2 can deliver 120 Mbps downstream and 60 Mbps upstream by using a 4X2 MIMO antenna configuration with a single 20 MHz TDD channel.

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It was already known that T-Mobile planned to nurse HSPA+ for as long as possible, and that their fourth generation wireless broadband plans were murky at best. Rene Obermann, CEO of T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, says the company won’t even consider making a move on LTE for at least two years. According to Obermann, the company isn’t worried that they’ll lag LTE efforts by Verizon and AT&T, who’ll both have deployments underway by that time. Says Obermann:

“We’ll get a fourth-generation wireless network either by buying spectrum or re-farming existing spectrum, or potentially leasing spectrum together with others. I don’t think we’ll trail others in the next two years. With HSPA+ we’re in a very good position. We still have plenty of capacity, so we are competitive” said Obermann.

T-Mobile does have some time (but not a lot) to dilly dally as they consider their next move. The company’s current upgrades allow theoretical downstream speeds of up to 20 Mbps, and there have been rumors they’ll try to push HSPA+ towards 40 Mbps down the line. While Verizon plans to offer 4G services by the end of this year, their LTE deployment will be initially capped at 5-12 Mbps downstream. AT&T meanwhile is taking their time on the shift to LTE, and like T-Mobile is nursing HSPA+, albeit less aggressively.

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After launching the HTC EVO to largely positive reviews back in June, Sprint is now gearing up to launch their second Mobile WiMax smartphone. The Samsung Epic 4G will be available starting August 31 for $250 after a $100 rebate and only if you sign a two-year contract with Sprint. The device mirrors the Samsung Galaxy S family of devices, but is the only one to support Mobile WiMax and have a slide-out keyboard.

The Epic comes with a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 1GHz Samsung Cortex A8 processor, Android 2.1 (no Froyo, yet), free 3G/4G hotspot functionality, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash capable of 720p video.

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Back in June, the long-standing, to the point of being utterly ridiculous, rumor that Verizon was finally going to be getting the Apple iPhone popped up at Bloomberg with the outlet claiming “two people familiar with the plans” had confirmed a January launch. Now Techcrunch now claims the rumor may be true, given Apple has ordered a massive number of baseband CDMA Qualcomm chips. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg is giving the keynote at CES this year in January, and it would certainly give him something to talk about.

That said, if the Apple iPhone hits in January, battery issues likely mean it won’t be dual mode and won’t be able to run on Verizon’s upcoming LTE network, which by January is expected to be available in 30 markets.

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Both Clearwire and Sprint this morning launched press releases stating they’ve expanded their joint Mobile WiMax into Modesto and Stockton, California, Jacksonville, Florida, Wilmington, Delaware, and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

According to Sprint, these launches bring their total number of 4G-served markets to 48. Both companies say they’re still on track to deploy the Mobile WiMax service to the New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston later this year. You can find a state-by-state market coverage breakdown for Sprint here and for Clearwire here.

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An insider recently told Engadget that the company would be ditching unlimited wireless data pricing to shift to a billing model more like AT&T’s as soon as next week. While that wouldn’t be surprising given Verizon’s repeated hints at their interest in such a model, Verizon has also repeatedly said such a change would likely come with the launch of LTE service.

To hear Verizon CFO John Killian tell it, Verizon’s not making any data plan price changes anytime soon. Said Killian on Verizon’s recent conference call:

Our business is continuing to perform extremely well. You have not seen us rush out to make any kind of a change. We will continue to monitor the situation, of course, and look at opportunities that will say what is the best equation for us to drive long-term shareholder value, and we will be very focused on that. I cannot say enough, though, about the opportunity we see ahead given where we are today with smart phone penetration.

Killian then goes on to talk about 4G and note that tiered pricing will, as they’ve consistently said, likely arrive with LTE:

We have indicated in the past, as we move to an LTE world and LTE pricing, we will probably look very hard at tiered pricing, and that continues to be our thinking right now. So more to come on that. By the way, I should say that all of our efforts, all of our plans on getting LTE launched in the fourth quarter are on schedule.

The original Engadget rumor pegged July 29 as the date for the change, so we don’t have long to wait. Verizon LTE isn’t expected to launch anywhere until November 15.

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