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Verizon Touts LTE Advanced Rollout With 50% Faster Peak Speeds in Over 450 Cities

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Verizon today announced a new marketing push for "LTE Advanced" technology that brings 50 percent faster peak wireless data speeds to 461 cities across the United States. The company marks LTE Advanced as the latest improvement on current 4G LTE technology, which it first introduced in 2010. Besides a collection of major cities, Verizon LTE Advanced will cover "loads of less-served places including highways, interstates, country roads and rural America."


LTE Advanced is not a new technology, with Verizon and other carriers working over the past couple of years to gradually roll it out through "carrier aggregation" upgrades that allow multiple bandwidth channels to be combined for faster speeds. Today's announcement from Verizon does, however, signal a major milestone in reaching coverage for 90 percent of the U.S. population.

The LTE Advanced upgrades come to Verizon's customers at no additional cost, with speed boosts and coverage kicking in "when you need it most," from day-to-day smartphone use to vacation trips. Verizon LTE Advanced will work on one of 39 devices already on the carrier's network, including the iPhone, Moto Droid, and Galaxy S6 and S7.
“Verizon LTE Advanced means your data session moves more quickly over the best network,” said Nicki Palmer, Verizon’s chief wireless network engineer. “Imagine a road with multiple lanes in which, once you pick a lane, that’s the lane you drive in. That describes our award-winning 4G LTE network.

Continuing the metaphor, Verizon LTE Advanced allows cars to change lanes efficiently and flawlessly, balancing the flow of traffic and getting drivers to their destinations more efficiently. That means blindingly fast data transmissions when you need it most.”
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Verizon's LTE Advanced deployment currently uses a combination of two- and three-carrier aggregation, with two-channel carrier aggregation resulting in download speeds of up to 225 Mbps under ideal conditions, compared to "typical" speeds of 5-12 Mbps.

Whenever new smartphones from Apple, Samsung, and other companies are released, they will support Verizon's new LTE Advanced service out of the box, and pre-existing smartphones on Verizon plans will automatically upgrade with "no extra plan costs, no settings to change, and no indicators to check." Verizon calls LTE Advanced "the next-generation of wireless technology" and hopes to continue expanding the technology's reach, and upgrading its abilities to offer three-channel carrier aggregation with theoretical speeds exceeding 300 Mbps.

Article Link: Verizon Touts LTE Advanced Rollout With 50% Faster Peak Speeds in Over 450 Cities
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/29/verizon-lte-advanced/
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This reminds me of how they rolled out Band 4 as some sort of BRAND NEW AMAZING TECHNOLOGY THAT ONLY VERIZON CAN GIVE YOU CALLED XLTE THE X STANDS FOR EXTREME!

EXTREME OVERAGE CHARGES!
 
So basically they just refined and optimized how the network works. Is that right? And they're marketing it as something new.
 
whats the point so u can just run through your data, why are companies even advertising speed, not like you can use it bring back unlimited! do it for the culture!
 
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I'm in one of the mentioned cities and generally have great reception and solid speeds.

That being said, I just ran a few speed tests outside my office while stretching my legs, and the speeds were good, but not 50% faster.

On average, I was getting 27 Mbps down and 16 Mbps up. (On firmware version 24.1)

Again, more than fine, but not a 50% increase.
 
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Silver Idaten said:
Didn't you know that Verizon totally invented LTE Band 4!? XLTE! VERIZON 4GXLTE!!

So clearly, they also just invented LTE Advanced. Thanks Verizon for always being a leader!
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Found the AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile sales guy...

Also, holy crap, I just pulled 105mbs down lol
 
techpr said:
So the 6S will work on LTE Advanced?
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According to Verizon, both the 6 and the 6s are compatible when you go to the page that allows you to shop for a compatible device. If I recall correctly, the 6 is capable of 150 Mbps on with LTE-A and the 6s is capable of 300 Mbps with LTE-A. I'd be shocked if people actually see over 150 Mbps on Verizon's network even after these upgrades.
 
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willmtaylor said:
I'm in one of the mentioned cities and generally have great reception and solid speeds.

That being said, I just ran a few speed tests outside my office while stretching my legs, and the speeds were good, but not 50% faster.

On average, I was getting 27 Mbps down and 16 Mbps up. (On firmware version 24.1)

Again, more than fine, but not a 50% increase.
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Yeah, I see about the same on my Verizon iPhone. The T-Mobile one gets 95 down and 30 up at the same location. Not terribly impressed, and this is in the Chicago suburbs.
 
Verizon's LTE network is extremely saturated. On a good day, I was lucky to get 25 Mbps up and down in Atlanta. Most days, it was closer to 12-18 Mbps. So, to get 50% faster than that wouldn't be a huge bump but it's something.

The first time I did an AT&T speed test about a year ago while I was test driving their network I pulled almost 70 Mbps down in an area where Verizon would reliably give me 15 Mbps down.

From my perspective, Verizon's claim to fame is the ubiquity of their LTE coverage, not their speed. AT&T has more speed in a lot of places, in my experience, but they don't quite have the LTE footprint that Verizon has. T-Mobile has the speed in a lot of markets but their LTE footprint is smaller still (though getting bigger). Sprint, well, their LTE coverage is a joke compared to the aforementioned carriers.
 
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WOW!? Up to 2.2 Mbps on my iPhone 6s. Thanks, Verizon! They list my area as a two city area. I am smack dab in the middle. They rock!

(Though, to be fair, my road usually just gets 3G if we're lucky - Even though their map shows full LTE-Advanced.)
 
Kevtech1 said:
VZ is such a joke! Where is VZ superior to At&t?? I've tested in NYC, ATL, Charlotte, Orlando, VA, etc and never has VZ come anywhere close to the DL speeds that At&t has........and you still can't surf & talk! #cdmablows!!

https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2016/02/t-announces-5g-field-trials-austin
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You do realize that with the iPhone 6 and newer, you can surf and talk when the phone is connected to Verizon's LTE network and VoLTE is enabled on the phone, right? Also, the number of places where a modern phone would connect to CDMA on Verizon's network is pretty small these days.
 
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AppleFan91 said:
Found the AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile sales guy...

Also, holy crap, I just pulled 105mbs down lol
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I actually used to work for Verizon, and even back then toward the end of it I wasn't a fan of what Verizon was doing to its customers and yes, I switched to T-Mobile. My store manager never found out, of course. I had friends at the store, and I told them that I left Verizon as a customer because I felt T-Mobile was a better value even without a corporate discount. By the time of my last week on the job I flat out told a customer that T-Mobile offers unlimited data for $80 (at the time) and that's what I had. Just being honest, I think that's closer to what they were looking for for their family. She was very grateful and probably a little shocked. All I wanted was to provide good customer service and technical support, and I was so sick that I was always held back by some sort of red tape by Verizon or the need to have to try and hock $200 worth of accessories with every phone to make some kind of money and keep my job.

I no longer work in the wireless industry at all actually, if you must know.
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avanpelt said:
You do realize that with the iPhone 6 and newer, you can surf and talk when the phone is connected to Verizon's LTE network and VoLTE is enabled on the phone, right? Also, the number of places where a modern phone would connect to CDMA on Verizon's network is pretty small these days.
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But Verizon VoLTE is limited by not being able to handoff to CDMA, resulting in a dropped call. It happens more than you think, Verizon does not have a perfect network and I've run into more than my fair share of 3G areas with Verizon.

You used to be able to talk and surf on most Android phones on Verizon on I believe 3G, maybe 1X, but that's because those phones included two radios to give it that ability. Once Verizon phones all started only having on radio, the limitations became far more apparent. Sprint doesn't even have VoLTE whatsoever yet. CDMA in general is a huge pain in the ass.
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iSRS said:
WOW!? Up to 2.2 Mbps on my iPhone 6s. Thanks, Verizon! They list my area as a two city area. I am smack dab in the middle. They rock!

(Though, to be fair, my road usually just gets 3G if we're lucky - Even though their map shows full LTE-Advanced.)
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Totally worth that $150+ a month bill, right?
 
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