Chances are good your familiar with the term 3G, the wireless generation. As you may know, it's not even fully nation wide. Now, 4G is attempting to squeeze in. Maybe it's the same battle such as Betamax vs. VHS, or Blue-ray vs. HD DVD. The victor becomes the standard and the flop becomes dead weight for the company who supported it. In this case it's Sprint supporting WiMAX and Verizon supporting Long Term Evolution (LTE). The difference is similar yet very different in some many respects.As you can see the spread of WiMAX greatly overwhelms LTE currently as of this writing. (Shaded area does not mean coverage area).
Lets start with WiMAX, as it already has roots in sixteen states. It's backed by Intel Capital, Comcast, Sprint, Google, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.
Now we have LTE, which just finished initial testing of 10 sites in Boston and Seattle.
Resources:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219300110&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All