Verizon 4G LTE Hit With Another Service Disruption

 

Verizon Wireless experienced another 4G LTE service disruption this morning, but the company said in a statement that things are now "returning to normal."

"Verizon Wireless 4G LTE service is returning to normal this morning after company engineers worked to resolve an issue with the 4G network during the early morning hours today," a spokesman said in a statement. "Throughout this time, 4G LTE customers were able to make voice calls and send and receive text messages. The 3G data network operated normally."

The disruption comes about two weeks after a similar incident that resulted in connectivity problems for some users.

Verizon did not have any details about what caused this, or the previous, 4G LTE problems.

Here at PCMag, a Verizon 4G LTE USB modem from Pantech was unable to establish a connection earlier this morning (click below), but appeared to be operational as of noon Eastern time.

News of the disruptions started making the rounds this morning via Twitter and on Verizon's message boards.

"I had data service problems on my verizon phone this morning. The internet did not work," one user tweeted.

"Verizon, why do I randomly lose Internet on my phone for extended periods of time in solid 4G locations," another tweeted.

On Verizon's community boards, users reported outages in: Riverside County, Calif.; Long Island, N.Y.; Manhattan; Las Vegas; Richmond, Va.; Teaneck, N.J.; Harrisburg, Pa.; Michigan; and more.

The trouble comes several weeks after Verizon celebrated the one-year anniversary of its 4G LTE network. The service is now available in 190 markets, up from 38 at launch. PCMag gave the network high praise during our 2011 Fastest Mobile Networks test: "We found that Verizon's new 4G LTE network is much faster than other mobile Web options, with speeds that often exceed home Internet connections," PCMag analysts concluded.

To boost that network, Verizon has made a number of spectrum purchases in recent weeks, including PCS and AWS spectrum in various U.S. markets from Leap Wireless for $188 million. Leap in turn bought 12 MHz of 700 MHz A block spectrum in Chicago from Verizon Wireless for $204 million.

That came days after Verizon paid three of the nation's top three cable companies $3.6 billion for 122 spectrum licenses in the AWS band. As part of the deal, Comcast will get $2.3 billion for the spectrum, Time Warner will get $1.1 billion, and Bright House will get $189 million.

Just this week, meanwhile, Cox agreed to sell its 20-MHz spectrum licenses to Verizon for $315 million as part of a deal to resell each other's services.