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Aside from a rather puzzling VivaMovil announcement earlier today, Verizon Wireless also had an announcement for their customers and even those looking to make the switch to a more reliable network. Seems the nation’s #1 largest wireless provider isn’t happy with simply blanketing nearly 95% of their 3G network in high-speed 4G LTE. Beginning the second half of this year, Verizon will begin deploying “small cells” (think tiny cell towers the size of a mini-fridge) around the country that will help, not only fill in gaps in coverage, but keep the 4G LTE flowing in dense, high traffic areas like malls or business districts.
You’ll start seeing these small cells popping up on lightposts, building walls and utility poles in your city later this year and combined with Verizon’s Distributed Antenna System (DAS) to help penetrate into marble and building basements, should leave no customer without video streaming or Facebook browsing.
With the 6 new markets just added as of Monday, Verizon Wireless is now looking at a total of 497 US markets blanketed in 4G LTE goodness. Verizon isn’t about to stop there, they also mention that the number of “normal” cell towers will continue to spread and that the AWS spectrum they purchased back in 2012 will also come into play, helping with overall network capacity.
win!
Maybe they can focus on areas of suburbia where you have a radius of 10 miles of 4G surrounding you, but you have 1 bar of 4G signal or if you put it in your pocket it switches to 3G. Main reason I will be leaving Verizon when my contract is up in a year.
Because you want 4G in your pocket? :P
You do if you’re streaming music and it disconnects everytime the phone loses signal and switches between 3/4g…
Well, after you pull your phone out of your pocket and it has to sit on a table for 5 to 10 minutes without you touching it before it will switch back to 4G, yes, I want 4G signal to stay while in my pocket.
Not even my G-Nexus takes that long to switch from 3G to 4G in the rare cases that it drops to 3G -_-
“Main reason I will be leaving Verizon when my contract is up in a year.”
Verizon has the largest network, who do you think will provide better coverage??
Largest network doesn’t always mean best. I pay a ton for Verizon to be the best, and I can’t even carry 4G all the time at my house? No thanks.
This is another example of why Verizon is the best
You mean the only example? O_o
OH SO PWNED – PWNED.
Hopefully they’ll eventually cover areas where I often lose all signal and my battery drains faster trying to find one.
what happened to the Android overload, Chris?
Sweet! Just did a drive from Delaware to Detroit and hit a lot of 3G areas on the way. Some of those areas were weak and stopped streaming TuneIn Radio. Glad I switched from T-Mobile cuz that trip unusually is no 3G or 4G for 85% of the trip.
they need to get their ducks in a row on interstate 68.
Not to mention i95 and i80 dead spots….
I hope all this radio frequency doesn’t really cause cancer, cause if it does we’re screwed lol
This will help all their customers hit those data limits that much faster. I’ve been with VZW for ten years and enjoy the coverage, but I will jump to T-Mobile in a heartbeat if they get even a comparable network in my area. We don’t get many of the newest devices and have to pay full price to keep our unlimited data.
hopefully this will help in NYC, in Miami I was pulling 10-20mbps all the time, moving to brooklyn, I pull a maximum of 6mbps on 4g, usually i am in the 2-3mbps range, and in many spots(like my apartment) I pull only 3g if I am lucky to get anything at all (sometimes the 4g pops on for my second but since it will only be 1 mbps, 3g at 1.5-2 will be faster). Im sure some of it is a backhaul problem as well.
From the diagram it looks like these are just repeaters and aren’t hard wired to the network. I don’t see how that would help traffic in denser areas. Regardless, this should be nice. In my experience, surrounding land features impact 4G signal greatly. I live in St. Louis, but a hill blocks 4G signal at my house, so I’m always on 3G. My parents live in the middle of nowhere 2 miles outside a tiny town that is 10 miles outside a slightly less tiny town and I get 3 bars 4G.
Verizon has a lot of haters, me included. But their network rollout speed and technology behind it cannot be argued.
I have been a customer of Verizon for a few years, I joined them about one month before they stopped their unlimited data plans, I am also a 7 year customer of T-Mobile. My Verizon data speeds went from 20mb down to not even able to keep a LTE signal locked in, after many many calls to their so called # 1 ranked customer service dept. I was finally told they had changed the direction of the local tower in my area to point to a more needed area. Needless to say I am pissed off, my unlimited data plan is just about useless. Instead of just dropping them I put my account on a voluntary suspension in hopes they fix my data. I will never drop my T-Mobile account, getting between 13-20mb down during the day and faster at night. They will be going LTE in my area very soon and I couldn’t be more happier. Verizon’s data speeds have gotten so slow due to over saturation in many areas, they have old LTE hardware on all their towers that just isn’t capable of handling the volume of data being pushed thru. T-Mobile on the other hand is installing LTE advanced hardware on all their towers because that hardware is available now and wasn’t when the other Carriers were installing their LTE Networks. T-Mobile will be leap frogging Sprint IMO very soon. I couldn’t be happier with T-Mobile, their customer service gets a bad rap, all CS dept suck when you deal with the lower level service help, I never talk with anyone but the top level in Customer Service, they are the best, always take care of me. IMO T-Mobile is the best Carrier in the USA.
tinyurl.com/cnaff79