Verizon says users should quit thinking about 4G LTE as the future and believes it is to offer the fastest and most reliable wireless service for smartphones and tablets through its XLTE service. That could be the beginning of a battle among mobile phone providers on who can develop and provide their customers with the best and fastest Internet as they go about their daily lives.
The new service will not be immediately available, and not all devices supported by Verizon are ready to go, but the company did say that it will be in a massive number of markets and will begin to get traction in larger areas as the company looks at rolling it our further.
Among the published list that Verizon put forward are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Oakland, Houston and Dallas. Around 100 devices are currently able to use the XLTE service, including the Motorola Moto X, Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 as well as all iPhone models, 5S and 5C.
"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," says Nicki Palmer, Verizon's Chief Technology Officer.
"We quickly overcame that by the end of the year with some really nice work," she adds.
Palmer also says that the marketing strategy is to play off the LTE fourth-generation technology that has been touted by other providers and that adding the X gives the idea and support for the fact that this is the fastest mobile network available in the United States.
Palmer adds that last year, Verizon began upgrading the company's existing LTE cell sites with new advanced antennas and base-station equipment to "use that new spectrum, called AWS, which delivers data at faster speeds and for higher capacities."
"XLTE adds capacity in neighborhoods or areas where demand is high, especially during busy periods like rush hour, lunch times in crowded areas or during events when mobile data use is the highest," Verizon said in a statement.
The company claims that the new XLTE will deliver twice the speeds as currently exist on the present LTE 4G services that other companies are offering. It is expected to see AT&T, T-Mobile and other scramble for the fastest and most innovative solutions to Verizon upping the competition.
