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What's causing a delay in Sprint's LTE rollout? Birds
Sprint mentioned that one of the holdups to get its LTE network rolled out is waiting for fiber-optic backhaul to be connected to its network sites. Of course, the company also mentioned a very different reason: birds. It turns out that some of the towers have become home to some avian families determined to hamper the uptake of high speed internet, which won't be activated until they migrate. We wouldn't advise you go with a stick trying to poke the nests from the sites -- we suspect the Humane Association is on the lookout for angry nerds.
Verizon Wireless' LTE expansion keeps on trucking, 15 new markets on September 15th
Not content to rest on its milestone-achieving laurels, Verizon's trek towards an America blanketed in 4G continues to plow ahead. Hot on the heels of the operator's last expansion, comes another 15 markets that get to surf along at blazing wireless speeds. Launching on September 15th in the western areas of the US, Big Red plans to flip the LTE switch on in the likes of Reno, Nevada; Moorhead, Minnesota; Fargo, North Dakota; Iowa City, Iowa; Canton, Lima and Mansfield Ohio; three counties in California and five additional markets in Illinois. At this pace, it looks like VZW might just hit that promised 185 million mark by year's end. Be sure to hit the source below for the full pressers.
Verizon further expands LTE network, says it now covers more than half the US population
Verizon's latest LTE network expansion may be a tad small compared to some previous ones -- encompassing 15 new markets, plus some additional coverage in ten existing ones -- but it was enough to push the carrier over one significant milestone. It now says that the network encompasses some 160 million Americans, or more than half the US population. As Verizon is quick to point out, that's a feat it managed to accomplish in just eight months. Head on past the break for the press release with the complete list of markets covered.
Verizon to light up LTE network in 30 'NFL cities' this year
We already knew Verizon was planning to hit one third of the country with LTE this year with plans to expand dramatically after that, but things are starting to come into sharper focus: the carrier today said that it'll light up 30 "NFL cities" with 4G by the end of the year. Now, there's only 32 teams, so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out where that's going to be -- and considering the plan is to hit "major metropolitan areas," we'll go ahead and guess Green Bay isn't on the list, even though the Packers are by far the best team in the league. (Buffalo and Jacksonville also spring to mind -- and let's not forget that the NFL still isn't in LA, despite Ari Gold's best fictional efforts on Entourage.) The plan is to first upgrade each cell site's backhaul connection to Gigabit Ethernet so they'll have the necessary bandwidth to support the 5-12Mbps down and 2-5Mbps up speeds with 30-150ms latency promised for Big Red's LTE network at launch. Ambitious, but hey -- we'd love nothing more than to be streaming the Super Bowl over LTE when all's said and done. Update: As many of our beloved commenters have pointed out, there are technically only 30 NFL markets, as New York has the Giants and Jets and the Raiders and 49ers play across the bay from each other. LTE for everyone, then? We'll have to wait and see -- and we've got a feeling a few Oakland residents might take offense at being lumped in with their neighbors across the bridge.
