Verizon Wireless claimed in a filing to the FCC in an attempt to purchase more wireless spectrum for its 4G LTE network that it could run out of its current spectrum as early as next year. That means customers moving to LTE devices will be pretty pissed off to find that within a year Verizon will no longer be able to meet their data needs.
Customers are already unhappy with the carrier as it is, having to deal with one outage after another lately. Sure, they might be able to fall back to 3G, but I think anyone would agree that people willing to make the leap into the 4G world (especially after Verizon continues to market the hell out of it) should have a positive experience doing so.
It gets even worse when you think about the iPad 3/HD announcement tomorrow. The models that can rely on wireless data instead of just WiFi are widely believed to support 4G LTE — a first for Apple. There’s no doubt the company will sell millions of these iPads, and those will put a serious dent in Verizon’s already limited 4G spectrum.
Credit should go where credit is deserved and Verizon Wireless has been doing a terrific job rolling out its LTE network nationwide as quickly as possible. In January, five new markets across the country lit up with LTE while three received improved signal strength. In February, one more was added. In total, Verizon LTE now blankets more than 200 million people in 196 different markets.