Any carrier would tell you that their first 4G LTE phase is far from being the last. While current LTE performance is quite delectable on most carriers, the technology is so good that there is still massive room for improvement. Said improvement can come in a way that’s easily scalable at the tower level, and it won’t take a massive difference in both site and cellular technology for users to begin to reap the benefits.
With Verizon pretty much finished with their initial LTE rollout, it looks like the nation’s largest carrier is getting ready to enter phase 2. GigaOM is reporting a series of speed tests on a certain Verizon tower in NYC that is clocking the network at up to 80 megabits per second down and 15 megabits up.
It’s suggested Verizon is testing their new upgrades on a full 40MHz of spectrum, which should theoretically allow max speeds of 150 megabits. That the user was able to pull down just 80 megabits could be explained by a couple of different things:
- Verizon is limiting bandwidth speeds themselves.
- The current deployment is not yet powerful enough to push further toward the high end of that “theoretical” number.
Whatever the case may be, it’s also worth noting that networks tend to do much better when there aren’t many people on them. Think back to the days where Verizon and AT&T first deployed LTE — users enjoyed as much as 40-50 megabits, but these days they’re lucky enough if they can hit 20, what with all the congestion they have to deal with.
These upgrades should help alleviate some of that congestion, and should prove to be just one of many key long-term moves Verizon needs to ensure their reputation for network quality remains unblemished. We’re not even sure how far away we are from seeing any official launch of these enhancements, but it’s nice to know that they’re working on it.
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