Verizon announced last Thursday that they have provided almost all of their customers 4G LTE internet service as the mobile date network is now running on 500 U.S markets. This makes them won by 200 over AT&T which has coverage in 300 markets at this point. 95 percent of their customers have 4G LTE coverage now.
While Verizon Wireless offers more coverage than their competitor, it falls short in terms of reliability and consistency of internet connection as their data network is more crowded than AT&T. The problem is that Mike Haberman, head of network solutions for Verizon Wireless, admitted in Bloomberg that they couldn’t do something about it.
“Speed isn’t sustainable, coverage is -- and that’s the difference,” Haberman said. “We are a lot more consistent, even as we have more of a load on our systems.”
RoadMetrics tested the LTE speeds of four major carriers in the U.S which revealed that AT&T is 21 percent faster than Verizon Wireless which runs only on an average of 14.3 megabits per second. This report was released in the public in March as well as the likability ratings in which Verizon Wireless won the spot over AT&T. 93 percent chose Verizon Wireless while 83 percent went for AT&T.
The carrier now targets to allow customers to make audio and video calls using 4G LTE. In Alaska, customers have 4G LTE which allows surfing the net but doesn’t have 3G so they can’t make calls.
The company plans to make it happen by converting 3G signals to 4G signals in some locations by first quarter of 2014. The 4G signal will be tied up with the carrier’s recent purchase Advanced Wireless Spectrum. The converted signal will be called LTE-Advanced. AWS will allow customers to use mobile and date services, do video calls, make phone calls and send text messages as well.
