Verizon bringing LTE to Reno on September 15th

With its LTE service already covering 117 U.S. cities, more than half the country's population-160 million Americans-have access to Verizon's 4G service, the carrier announced today that Reno, Nevada will start receiving Big Red's LTE service on September 15th. Other nearby locations such asCarson City, Sparks, and Virginia City will also be covered by Verizon's LTE pipelines. As we reported, last week Verizon added 15 cities to its LTE roster.

Verizon claims that its LTE service offers speeds as much as 10 times faster than its 3G network and that Verizon's LTE smartphones are twice as fast as the 4G handsets offered by AT&T.  According to the carrier, Verizon's LTE customers should experience average downlink data rates of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) and 2 to 5 Mbps on the uplink. Kevin Zavaglia, Verizon Wireless president of the Northern California/Northern Nevada/Hawaii Region said that the speed of Verizon's LTE network is something that smartphone users need to experience for themselves, and suggests that once the switch is turned on in the area, Verizon customers should stop by a local store for a demo.

The carrier currently offers three LTE enabled smartphones with the LG Revolution, the HTC ThunderBolt and the Samsung Droid Charge. Hopefully, by the time the LTE service starts in the Reno area, Verizon will have added a fourth LTE handset with the Motorola DROID Bionic.

source: Verizon