Verizon prepping more markets for LTE

By Phil Nickinson  | May 23 2011 | 10:05 am  | 45 Comments

Verizon LTEYour city miss out on Verizon's recent LTE push? No worries, as Big Red's getting ready to throw the switch on more come June 16. And the lucky locations are:

  • Hartford, Conn.
  • Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing, Mich.
  • Dayton and Springfield, Ohio
  • Salt Lake City
  • Spokane, Wash.
  • Sacramento, Calif.
  • Expansion in Oakland, Calif.
  • Fresno, Calif.
  • Boise, Idaho
  • Erie, Harrisburg and State College, Penn.
  • Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.
  • Fort Wayne-Indianapolis
  • Milwaukee, Wis.
  • Sioux Falls, S.D.

So for all you with a Droid Charge or HTC ThunderBolt, get ready for some fast, fast data. And with about three weeks to go before the big day, there's plenty of time to pick up a spare battery -- or two. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Source: Verizon Wireless

Phil Nickinson

Phil Nickinson Editor in Chief

"Phil is a recovering print journalist, editor of Android Central, subtitles and street signs."

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There are 45 comments

myriad46 says:

Good move Big Red! That's 21 more markets where data junkies will buy your 2 battery sucking LTE phones with no idea of the data charges they'll incur by late summer. Give them a marketing high-five.

drewfus0929 says:

Except that 4g data plans are currently unlimited.

myriad46 says:

This month they are. You better believe that when tiered data comes out this summer, 4G will be their "premium" service. Get people addicted, then charge them our the nose for it. That's what I meant by my post. People will buy the phone, get used to the speed and when they change the plans, they won't be able to resist.

thesneak155 says:

So you know for a fact that they are going to do this or are you just speculating? I'm going to go with the latter... When you know something that is a solid fact then you go ahead and let us know

Naris says:

Considering all plans that exist now will probably be grandfathered in until the customer makes a change, I am not sure why this would happen. Even if Verizon were dumb enough to do that, wouldn't it constitute a material change in your contract and let all those early adopters walk out of their contracts without penalty?

canesfan44 says:

What are you talking about? My unlimited LTE contract is for 2 years, they can't go and change the price on us at during the middle of the summer. We signed a contract, which makes it illegal for them to do so. My battery is very good now, after the OTA.

myriad46 says:

You guys have a lot more faith in Verizon than I do. We shall see.

AMaench says:

I will give you the Thunderbolt is a battery hog but the Droid Charge is the exact opposite. I have both sitting right in front of me for testing and the Thunderbolt has a lot stronger 4G radio which burns the battery quite fast.

The cool part of the 4g on VZ is that if you have multiple devices you can just swap out the sim card like on a GSM network and go. It's awesome that they moved the network authentication up to the SIM card level instead of keeping it on the ESN's.

experiment 626 says:

That is a nice feature though I do wish it worked like a "full-featured" SIM card where you could just drop-in the LTE card and it activated any LTE phone.

nasmith7 says:

By that time it'll finally be a available in Jacktown, MS!

lds710 says:

Goodbye Sprint!

lds710 says:

I liked my Evo too :-(

PensHockey says:

Flint?? Really....are the going for markets that they know will not use data so they don't crash ther system again.

fiznarp says:

I'm guessing they're probably are going for the markets where the backhaul agreements are ready first. Indianapolis isn't a small city and we're getting LTE here.

Wantec says:

Indy is a different case. For some reason, probably some kind of marketing deal, Verizon's first LTE cities were all cities that had NFL teams, plus a bunch of the bigger airports.

As for picking the rest of the cities it's expanding to so far, there's probably a bunch of different reasons. I know Hagerstown, MD is listed as one of the ones to be expanded to this year, and Verizon doesn't even have any 3G coverage there according to it's coverage locator map.

inyrules says:

Sprint, where are you? My "4G" is shotty as hell in Miami. I'd actually switch to Verizon now to jump on the unlimited plan while I can, but it's way too expensive to jump ship now.

mhmmdy123 says:

At lease your 4G never goes out like VZW.

canesfan44 says:

You're right, not getting a 4g signal and, when you do get it, it's a very weak signal, is much better than always getting a very strong signal on a significantly faster network except for the 2 days it was down. Every day that goes by Verizon is strengthening and expanding their network. This means that Verizon's LTE network will be stronger and stronger and crashes will become less and less likely. I still had 3g (I also live in Miami) during the two crashes, so Verizon's LTE crash gave me 2 days where I didn't have an LTE signal, so I had to struggle with the fact that I was paying all that extra money for 4g service (oops, I meant that I'm paying the same for 4g as I would for 3g) and only getting 3g speeds (isn't that what AT&T is doing?). Luckily, the other 60+ days I've had a very strong signal and excellent speeds (18+ up). That makes me really wish I had a very weak to nonexistent Sprint 4g signal everyday instead of an extremely strong Verizon LTE signal 95% of the time, and who cares if Verizon's LTE is much faster, right?

FreudSlipped says:

I can't get much more than dial up speed (supposedly 3G signal) from Sprint in the most densely populated State in the U.S. . I think the EVO is a great phone. I also think Sprint is ripping me off every time I pay that bill.

mhmmdy123 says:

Go to VZW they`r way cheaper than anyone in the market and their LTE BETTER working one week and stop the other week... WHat A JoKE.

lsmunoz says:

Interesting Indy already has 4G on. A coworker has the TBolt and said it flipped on last week.

yankees368 says:

The reason that small cities like Lansing and Flint MI safe getting LTE is a good one. When vzw acquired alltel, they stupidly shut off and dismantled the alltel network and moved all the traffic to the existing vzw network....without making any improvements. That pretty much killed EVDO for the last 6 months. 100kbps is what I consider a good speed around here.

El Jefe says:

Indiana: West Lafayette(check), Ft. Wayne(check), Indianapolis(check). Come on...lets do Evansville next!

kissmeimirish says:

Sweet, in addition to my thunderbolt reboots, I can add really really bad battery life.

experiment 626 says:

You have to give Verizon credit, they're serious about their commitment to LTE.I don't mind spending the money if I can at least see part of it being re-invested in "The Network". If only phone hardware and battery technology can catch up.

mhmmdy123 says:

Really than why the 4gLTE keep goes down all the time? VZW should call it 2G not 4G, Sprint network never goes down at all, again you get what you pay for.

willenium_1217 says:

They keep updating their Twitter account. They just added Boise, ID. This is the reason why I am still with Verizon. They are expanding efficiently. Releasing phones that work with 4G and letting the network explode!

thesneak155 says:

Is Oprah running their twitter?

You get 4G and you get 4G

experiment 626 says:

"You get a spare battery..You get a spare battery...You get a spare battery!..." LOL

thesneak155 says:

Give me Memphis! I am eagerly awaiting that announcement!

Hockeypuck55 says:

About time. Can't wait!

richardyarrell says:

Anyone worried about this is just as useless as verizon's LTE service. They need to advertise that their LTE is the WORST for android devices SUCKING BATTERY. 4hr thunderbolt battery, sorry droid charge battery, BOTTOMLINE LTE IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT WHEN A PERSON'S BATTERY DOESN'T LAST 4HRS.... Sprint will forever rule 4g

thesneak155 says:

A wild troll appears!

I used LTE in Atlanta when I was visiting and I am using the stock battery and made it the whole day...

canesfan44 says:

The OTA just about doubled my battery life. I didn't notice a difference until last week when I forgot to charge my battery over night and by the end of the day, I still had about 30% power left. So my phone went 48 hours without charging. I don't know what people are doing that they are only getting 4 hours of battery, other than the fact that half the people that tell these stories don't even have a TB.

prakash99 says:

New Hampshire .... how about New Hampshire? There is LTE just south of the border in Methuen, Lawrence, Lowell .....

experiment 626 says:

What about Burlington,VT? Hopefully the whole I-89 corridor won't be too far down the list.

zacisblack says:

Honestly...you have LTE in over 8 cities in Texas but fail to give the 4th largest city (Austin) LTE coverage. What gives?

smthomas66 says:

For all those that are complaining about the Thunderbolt battery there are a few free apps that will solve this. 1) Use juice defender on the basic settings. This pretty much turns off the radio more efficiently when the screen is idle. Yes you can get calls, texts, e-mails, and any other notification with this on. It can almost double your basic battery life. I went from 5-7 hours of battery to being able to go from 6am-11pm with 30% left with what I consider fairly heavy use. 2) There is an app called network that allows you to chose what radio is on. I don't have 4G LTE here yet so I just have CDMA selected for 3G. When 4G comes to town I can still leave the phone on 3G until I want a bit of a boost for 4G. Most people may have a need for 4G only now and again anyway so just toggle instead of having the phone constantly look for those signals. 3) Look for any out of control apps and get rid of them. Some will constantly restart and if they are looking for updates that will kill your battery. If you can get 16-18 hours then there is nothing to complain about and it's definitely easy to do with the stock battery. One last thing...in airplane mode your phone will fully charge in about 1 1/2 to 2 hours instead of 4 or so when the radio is on.

smthomas66 says:

One last thing I use...juice plotter gives a graph of the battery use over several days so you can see what effect certain things have on your battery. This way you know if your using something and it drains 30% of your battery in one hour it may not be something you want or need if it's more important to have the battery last. Using this could also give you an idea of what the effects are on the battery if you're on wi-fi vs 4g/3g. I have noticed I use less juice on wif-fi at home so I make sure I turn it on at home.

nscott69 says:

Grand Rapids!!!! Finally!

edgeblade says:

Would be nice if we could get some 4G news here in Hampton Roads, VA...we're a fairly large market, large military presence, but no dice. But hopefully Verizon will get the 4G problems fixed first...

svargas05 says:

Man, I'm kind of afraid to step into the comment section of this article, me being an avid Sprint customer. BUT!

I do have to give Verizon props for properly exapnding their network. Unfortunately Sprint stuck with "we gotta be first" and now they'll ultimately be last in speed; until they switch to LTE in 1-2 years.

You stick Verizon's 4G coverage with Sprint's prices and TRULY UNLIMITED plans; you've got the perfect network.

bmlively says:

Strange... I've been getting a 4G signal in Hartford on my T-bolt for well over a month now.

dcviper says:

Still no love for Hampton Roads.. What gives?

Xharakov says:

Drove through State College PA last weekend and got solid 4G signal all the way through...