Verizon Wireless' (NYSE:VZ) LTE network suffered an outage Tuesday evening and company engineers are working to resolve the problem. It's unclear how widespread the outage is, how many devices are impacted, what caused the outage or when it will be resolved. A Verizon spokesman did not immediately respond to inquiries.
The operator first acknowledged the issue via its official Twitter feed Wednesday morning, and said that the company's engineers were working to fix it. Verizon customers using the HTC ThunderBolt, Verizon's first LTE smartphone, first reported issues Tuesday evening when they were unable to receive an LTE signal. Some customers said that they were only receiving a 1X data connection.
The outage is the first major issue for Verizon's LTE network, which the company has been heavily promoting since it launched service in December. The outage comes just a few days after Nicola Palmer, Verizon Wireless' vice president of network operations, told attendees at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit that Verizon's LTE launch was very smooth with few glitches.
Verizon currently has 45 markets and 60 airports blanketed with LTE service, covering 110 million POPs. The carrier plans on expanding LTE service to at least 147 markets by the end of 2011. It will cover its existing 3G footprint by the end of 2013.
For more:
- see this Twitter post
- see this Engadget post
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
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