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Verizon had hoped to blanket 400 markets in warm, fuzzy 4G LTE goodness by the end of the year. Instead of meeting their goal, they have surpassed it by two months, announcing Marquette, Michigan as the latest city to receive the network’s next-gen coverage, which goes live on October 18. Verizon says the choice is symbollic: as a city of only 21,000, Marquette represents the milestone of moving past large and mid-sized regions to now focus less populated regions.
As a comparison, AT&T currently boasts just over 70 LTE markets while Sprint has yet to top 15. With Verizon setting sights on what will follow their 400th, it will take quite some time for competitors to catch up. For more info on Marquette, check out the short presser below courtesy of Verizon.
Marquette, Michigan, IS 400th 4G LTE MARKET FROM VERIZON WIRELESS
Learn More About the Small Town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
MARQUETTE, Mich. – Verizon Wireless has chosen Marquette, Mich., as its symbolic 400th 4G LTE market because it represents the growth of the nation’s largest 4G LTE network beyond America’s largest and medium range cities and helps to expand its reach to every corner of the United States.
Not familiar with Marquette? Need some nuggets of knowledge about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula? Here are some fun facts and trivia about the Upper Peninsula’s most populated city.
Getting to Know Marquette
- Marquette, Mich., is located in the north central area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and on the southern shores of Lake Superior, the northernmost of the Great Lakes.
- It has a population of approximately 21,000 people.
- Marquette is home to Northern Michigan University and its 9,400 students. The university’s colors are Forest Green and Old Gold. Its mascot is Wildcat Willy.
- Marquette is about a three hour drive to the Upper Peninsula’s eastern border with Canada and the town of Sault Ste. Marie, and a three and a half hour drive south to the closest larger city, Green Bay, Wis., a city with a population of more than 100,000.
- From a geographic size perspective, the Upper Peninsula contains 29 percent of Michigan’s land mass but only 3 percent of its population.
- In the mid-19th century, the city and region began to grow in population based on growth in the area’s rich iron mining industry.
- Marquette got its name on Aug. 21, 1850, to honor French missionary Jacques Marquette who had explored the region 200 years earlier.
- The city, which covers just less than 20 miles, averages about 150 inches of snow every year – that’s more than 12 feet of snow. Its average high temperature is 51 degrees and average low temperature is 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
- The city is home to the world’s largest wooden dome, the Superior Dome. The second largest, just one foot smaller, is located in Japan. The Superior Dome is affectionately known as the Yooper Dome. Yooper is the term given to those from the Upper Peninsula.
- It was recently named by “CBS MoneyWatch” as one of the 10 Best Places to Retire in the United States.
- Verizon Wireless service was first made available in Marquette in 2009 when the company acquired Alltel. In November of that year, the company opened its first store in Marquette and continued to work on expanding its network across the Upper Peninsula, activating 43 new cell sites that year alone.
- In addition to Marquette, Verizon also has stores in Escanaba, Houghton and Iron Mountain – all Upper Peninsula markets.
Wow those are awesome figures, here in the UK 4g is about to get started – it’s kind of the opposite to 3g which my current Network kicked off as a brand new competitor leaving the long established ‘big guns’ trailing in their wake & wrongly/arrogantly assumed would never take off so why waste money investing in.
Too bad 4g doesn’t work half the time.
Unless you’re talking about phone specific issues (I haven’t had any) there hasn’t been an outage in quite some time.
Yet still no 4G where I live in northwest New Jersey.
SoCal here and Verizon is awesome everywhere I go
So glad to be on this network.
I can’t wait to switch to Verizon next year. I’ve been with Sprint for almost a decade and I’m miserable. No 4G for years now & the 3G coverage is getting worse & worse.
Even though I’m leaving Verizon for T-Mobile next month, I’m going to miss their amazing coverage.
check out their data roaming policy b/4 you jump. that’s why i left t-mo after 11 years.
Dear Verizon, this is what we love about u, ur service is by far the best at this point. We love having service where ever we go, this is why we pay those ridiculously high phone bills, because we know we can depend on ur service. Ur dedication to roll out 4g LTE ahead of all competitors and to a large market makes us warm n fuzzy inside. Its all the other things ( forcing people of unlimited data, slow updates, blocking apps people really want to offer crappy competitor services hint: GOOGLE WALLET ) that will ultimately turn existing customers as well as new ones to ur competitors. Please here ur customers voices and make us proud to be on Verizon. Oh, and ur software sucks so please stop bloating our phones and support unlocked bootloaders. I only hacked my galaxy nexus cause i was tired of waiting for jellybean, but now i love rooting.
Sincerely, ur $150 a month for 1 smartphone + a dummy line cause i needed this nexus paying customer
Your dummy line, is is unlimited? you can insert that SIM into a 4G tablet, no?
Actually, this news kind of frustrates me. I live in Dubuque, Iowa. Population ~60K. Still lacking 4G LTE.
They probably have a minimum required population at first, like 500,000. But I think after all the major areas are covered in LTE, then they will start upgrading smaller cities and towns.
I’ve had daily 4G coverage in Sacramento since they rolled it out. The only day I have not had LTE is when they had that service blackout. Otherwise I have great LTE, and sometimes I hit 35Mbps!
Ukiah, pop.16,000 and Cloverdale, pop.8,000 got LTE last week, they are both located here in Northwestern California, aka the North Coast.
LTE Launched here in St.Cloud MN last december. It was great until the iPhone 5 launch, now it hesitates. To see they are expanding here is nice, hopefully it will bring the speed back to pre-iPhone 5 days.
i hope they flip the switch on my home tower soon.