Verizon Announces Completion of Its 4G Network

We’ve all heard about the patent wars between the biggest of the big tech companies. We’ve also heard of the console wars between companies like Microsoft and Sony (and, to a lesser extent, Nintendo). A new tech war is heating up in the cellular carrier world over which companies are able to snap up the biggest and best 4G networks. Verizon has just announced that it has finished upgrading its network. The company hopes that this kind of step will help it win the 4G wars.

With the final steps now completed, Verizon says that it is providing long-term, next-generation cellular networks to 99 percent of its customers in the United States. That network covers more than 298 million people and 500 markets. Verizon knows that even smaller cellular carriers like Aio are getting in on the 4G wars, which is one reason the company had stepped up efforts to complete its network upgrade this summer.


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The finished upgrade also puts real pressure on the company’s competitors like AT&T and Sprint. Those two companies are still attempting to get their next generation networks up and running. Verizon says that the company’s 4G network is already going quite strong, carrying more than 57 percent of the carrier’s total connections.

Verizon’s timing on the announcement is probably not a coincidence. It comes just days after Sprint/Nextel announced that their shareholders had approved a takeover by Softbank. That takeover will mean millions of dollars in new capital flooding into the company. Sprint will dedicate quite a bit of that money towards speeding up the rollout of its own 4G network.

AT&T probably has the second-biggest 4G network in the U.S., with more than 200 million people covered in 291 markets. T-Mobile is fast on the bigger companies’ heels, however, and expects to have its own next-generation network covering more than 200 million people by the end of the year.