Verizon will carry the Galaxy Nexus and NFC is to be enabled

Verizon will carry the Galaxy Nexus and NFC is to be enabled

It’s official, Verizon will be carrying the Galaxy Nexus and NFC will be enabled, according to the press release coming out of Big Red this evening. We don’t have a date or pricing for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus as yet and we have no clue whether Google Wallet will be available for consumers. But if you have been waiting to know whether the new leader of the pack in NFC super phones was going to hit an LTE network in your neck of the woods tonight, you can rest a little easier.

Verizon will carry the Galaxy Nexus and even if it has NFC enabled, it is likely that there will be no Google Wallet

The information sent out by Verizon names Google services that will be available on the Galaxy Nexus including “Android Market, Gmail™, Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps, Google Earth™, Movie Studio, YouTube™, syncing with Google Calendar™ and a redesigned Google＋ app.” Guess what’s missing? Yep, no Google Wallet. We can’t confirm that to be a fact at the moment, but it is looking likely that Isis won the battle of wills when it came to NFC payments on Verizon’s network for the Galaxy Nexus.

Many of the other Galaxy Nexus details Verizon sent out include specifications that we already know about the phone. However, you can find them again here. The Verizon LTE network will provide the Samsung Galaxy Nexus download speeds of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps in 4G LTE mobile broadband coverage areas. The fact NFC will be enabled is a win and that leaves AT&T out in the cold because they are currently blocking NFC on all smartphones that have the chip.

We are guessing that the pressure has been steadily mounting on Verizon to make some kind of announcement about the Galaxy Nexus. By the very fact that days after the announcement have released a press release that neither contains a launch date or pricing suggests more is going on behind the scenes than we are being shown. Consumers had started to become disenchanted with Verizon in the absence of any word about the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and to a lesser extent, NFC. If Verizon had made this statement at the time of the Galaxy Nexus announcement we wouldn’t have thought a lot about it, but three days later and after the working week is through?

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile – it’s your move. We bet that now Verizon has broken the announcement stalemate we will start to hear from the other networks in short order now. What we need to know is who will carry it, how much will it cost and will NFC be enabled?

Then there is that little matter of network charges and speed to consider. AT&T’s LTE network is said to be performing faster than Verizon’s, but AT&T has blocked NFC up until now. AT&T also doesn’t have the LTE network coverage of Verizon. T-Mobile has fast 3G no matter how many times they call it 4G, but they have allowed NFC to function on their network for everything but NFC payments. Sprint allows Google Wallet over their network, but are still building out their LTE network. If the Isis crew hold true to form NFC payments, features will not be available on Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

However before you get in line for the Galaxy Nexus do remember that the Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE just came through the FCC with NFC onboard.