Verizon Announces Additional 4G LTE Cities for 2011, 145 Markets by the End of the Year
With the release of the HTC Thunderbolt last week, Verizon wants to make sure that more of you can take advantage of its ridiculous 4G LTE speeds. At this time, only 39 markets are enjoying the power …
Context & Ripple Effects
Verizon enters March 2011 with rare momentum: its February iPhone launch cleared one million units in under a month per Dan Mead, with ad-network data from Chitika crediting it 12% of the U.S. iPhone base within weeks. The LTE buildout is the next lever — but at announcement time only 39 markets are live, which caps who can actually use an LTE handset like the newly launched HTC Thunderbolt.
The 145-market commitment for end-of-2011 is therefore a demand-side fix for a device-side problem: Verizon has spent early 2011 stocking LTE hardware (the Thunderbolt, the Motorola Xoom it advertised in February), and the network has to catch up to the portfolio.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the HTC Thunderbolt and other LTE devices move from a 39-market footprint to a 145-market one by December, turning a niche early-adopter purchase into a broadly usable one.
- Verizon gets a concrete number to anchor its speed marketing through 2011, extending the momentum from its February iPhone launch into data-tier differentiation.
Second-order effects
- Device partners such as HTC have a larger addressable audience for LTE variants on Verizon, raising the payoff for prioritizing 4G radios in upcoming flagships.
- Competing carriers face pressure to publish their own upgrade roadmaps rather than cede the speed benchmark while Verizon's footprint quadruples.
Third-order effects
- If the 2011 cadence holds, U.S. carrier competition shifts its center of gravity from handset exclusives to network-buildout commitments, with capex pace becoming the public scoreboard.
- LTE coverage breadth risks becoming table stakes for flagship launches, forcing every major device debut to be judged against whichever carrier's map it runs on.
The trend: American mobile competition is moving from handset lineups to infrastructure, with each carrier's published LTE-market count becoming the metric rivals and buyers watch.