John Minchillo/Associated PressVerizon’s new campaign is a play on the name of the latest fourth-generation network technology, LTE, already used by it and many other carriers.
Data-guzzling smartphones and tablets are so ubiquitous that even Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 American phone carrier, was getting crushed by network traffic last
year in big cities like New York. The company now says it has fixed
its network in problematic areas, and this week it is introducing an
advertising campaign to make consumers aware of improved portions of its
network.
Verizon calls its new campaign XLTE — a play
on the name of the latest fourth-generation network technology, LTE,
already used by Verizon and many other carriers. The X refers to an
extra-fast, higher-capacity version of LTE available on about half of
Verizon’s network, according to Nicki Palmer, a chief technology officer
for Verizon.
In 2012, Verizon bought a huge swath of spectrum, the
radio waves that carry wireless communications, from the country’s
largest cable providers. Ms. Palmer said that in the middle of last
year, Verizon started upgrading its LTE cell sites with new antennas and
base-station equipment to use that new spectrum, called AWS, which
delivers data at faster speeds and for higher capacities.
Not all cities are activated with the new spectrum yet, and not all devices are compatible with it. Verizon on Monday published a list
of about 260 markets and 100 devices that are ready for so-called XLTE.
Those markets include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco,
Oakland, Houston and Dallas. Compatible device include the iPhone 5S and
5C, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and S5 and Motorola’s Moto X.
For older devices that are not capable of
using the AWS spectrum, like the iPhone 5 or Galaxy S III, Verizon’s
existing 4G LTE network should work faster as well, Ms. Palmer said.
People using the newer devices move over to so-called XLTE, freeing up
capacity for more people on LTE.
So far, Verizon’s network upgrades appear to
be turning in strong numbers, even in Manhattan, where Verizon
acknowledged it was having trouble last year. The most recent data from
Ookla, a company that allows smartphone users to measure their Internet
speeds, found that on average, Verizon Wireless subscribers were getting
the fastest speeds in Manhattan, with T-Mobile in No. 2, AT&T in
No. 3 and Sprint in last place.
“We definitely had a short-term blip in
high-traffic areas in Manhattan, driven by the popularity of our service
and density of the market,” Ms. Palmer said. “We quickly overcame that
by the end of the year with some really nice work.”
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/verizon-wireless-names-faster-part-of-its-network-xlte/?_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/verizon-wireless-names-faster-part-of-its-network-xlte/?_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0