Verizon blames 4G network outages on 'growing pains'

Verizon's claim of being the nation's most reliable network sure took a hit this month. At least three separate outages occurred during December, frustrating customers. The carrier's statement, however, could not be more non-committal, as it blames the outages on the perils of building out its 4G LTE network.

"Being a pioneer comes with growing pains", the carrier says in a statement. "The recent issues that affected our customers' 4GLTE service were unforeseen despite careful, diligent planning, deployment and ongoing upgrade programs". Each of the three outages were blamed on different issues, which engineers have since remedied to prevent those issues from occurring again.

In all cases, LTE customers maintained some level of service, often being redirected to Verizon's 3G network. Despite the three incidents during December, Verizon's LTE network recorded a 99 percent uptime during 2011, it stresses.

The carrier has been agressive in its LTE rollout, and was the first major carrier to offer the technology in the United States when the 4G network launched in December 2010 (MetroPCS was first overall, launching LTE in Las Vegas in September of that year). Since then, its network has expanded to cover about 200 million people in 190 markets. Compare this to AT&T's LTE network, available in only 15 cities.

It is possible that this aggressive rollout may have contributed to Verizon's issues, but without specifics on the nature of the network issues it's hard to say. Another possibility could be sourced back to its LTE push itself. Verizon has had two major LTE device rollouts in the past two months alone: the Galaxy Nexus and the Motorola Droid RAZR. Anecdotal data indicates that both have sold well.

Verizon also has seven other LTE smartphones in its lineup -- the HTC Rezound and Thunderbolt, the Samsung Stratosphere and Droid Charge, the Pantech Breakout, Motorola's Droid Bionic, and the LG Revolution. Since the launch of its network last year, the company released just about one new device per month since the Thunderbolt, Verizon's first LTE phone that launched in March.

Add this to a host of tablets, hotspots, and USB modems also now in Verizon's portfolio, and it's not too much to deduce that a significant segment of Verizon's smart device users moved over to the LTE network during 2011. Was the network ready for it? Maybe not.

Regardless, the company is taking steps to ensure reliability which is a hallmark of its marketing.

"Among the numerous measures we have taken or will take are: geographic segmentation, which enables us to isolate, contain and rectify network performance issues, and maintain service to the majority of customers when an issue does develop; and software fixes that we have developed, tested and applied regularly -- and will continue to do so".

"We will not rest until our 4GLTE network performs at the very highest levels that our customers have come to expect from us", the company concludes.