Verizon's LTE network will be available in more than 300 US markets as of June 21st
Verizon has rolled out its LTE network more rapidly than we expected over the last year and change — late last year, the company hit a milestone of covering more than 200 million Americans …
Context & Ripple Effects
Verizon's LTE buildout has been the fastest network expansion in recent memory: from a plan for 145 markets by end of 2011 announced in March 2011, through crossing half the U.S. population that August and the 200-million-PoP milestone late last year, to more than 300 markets as of tomorrow. The pace has consistently outrun analyst expectations.
The coverage push lands in the middle of an unusually busy month for Verizon: the June 12th Share Everything shared-data plans, the June 18th FiOS Quantum speed doubling, its first-to-market Galaxy S III launch, and a confirmed partnership with major automakers on a 4G LTE connected-car ecosystem. The syndication trail — Verizon's own newsroom plus Apple-focused outlets like iDownloadBlog and iClarified — shows the story traveling well beyond Android circles.
First-order effects
- Verizon can now sell Share Everything plans and LTE devices like the Galaxy S III against a 300-plus-market footprint, removing the coverage caveat that limited earlier 4G pitches in smaller markets.
- The connected-car partnership with major automakers gets a materially larger addressable footprint, since embedded automotive modules need nationwide data coverage to be sellable.
Second-order effects
- AT&T, still earlier in its own LTE deployment, faces pressure to accelerate market counts or cede the 'largest 4G network' claim that anchors carrier marketing.
- Rural and secondary-market customers gain a credible LTE alternative to wired broadband just as Verizon doubles FiOS speeds with Quantum — letting the company segment homes between fixed and wireless paths rather than lose them outright.
Third-order effects
- If the buildout cadence holds, LTE coverage stops being a differentiator among the big carriers and competition shifts entirely to pricing structures (shared data) and ecosystem plays (connected devices, autos).
- A near-ubiquitous LTE layer positions carriers as infrastructure for industries beyond phones — autos, tablets, home gateways — making spectrum holdings and backhaul capacity the durable strategic assets.
The trend: US carriers are racing to make LTE a nationwide default ahead of device demand, shifting competition from coverage maps to data-plan economics and embedded-device ecosystems.