Three separate incidences of outages this month caused a lot of Verizon Wireless customers strife, as the company’s 4G LTE network proved a little unreliable.
Customers trying to access Big Red’s 4G LTE network found themselves without access. Verizon officials responded in a statement issued that service had returned to normal, but did not say how many customers were affected, how widespread the problem was and how long it lasted. Officials added that the 3G data network “operated normally” during the 4G LTE problem, and that 4G customers were also able to make calls and receive text messages during that time.
Now, GigaOm has the scoop that Mike Haberman, Verizon’s VP of network engineering is blaming the “immaturity” of its 4G LTE network.
“Being the pioneers, we’re going to experience some growing pains,” Haberman said. “These issues we’ve been experiencing are certainly regrettable but they were unforeseeable.”
The Verizon4G community page is teeming with comments regarding the recent outage, many of the commenters asking where to get rebates and, among other things, how Verizon will text them when the data network is down, and the Verizon Wireless Twitter Support handles (@VZWSupport) had been responding to customer complaints of outages during the duration of the outages.
Verizon's LTE network is experiencing issues as more 4G devices continue to hit the carrier. The HTC Rezound, Motorola Razr and Samsung Galaxy Nexus are some of the company's top-selling devices, and all of them have hit the carrier over the past two months.
Verizon has put forth efforts to improve its LTE network by purchasing spectrum as it expands, but if the company struggles to keep up with customer adoption, things look to get worse before they get better.
Relatedly, back in October, BlackBerry users across the world were exasperated as an outage of e-mail, messaging and Internet services on the phones spread to the U.S. and Canada and stretched into the third day for Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.
It was the biggest outage in years for BlackBerry users, and strained their relationship with an already tarnished brand.
Michelle Amodio is a MobilityTechzone contributor. She has helped promote companies and groups in all industries, from technology to banking to professional roller derby. She holds a bachelor's degree in Writing from Endicott College and currently works in marketing, journalism, and public relations as a freelancer.Edited by
Jennifer Russell 
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