Verizon defends 4G LTE outages, claims that ‘being a pioneer comes with growing pains’

December 30, 2011 By Jeffrey Van Camp

Verizon has issued a statement about why its 4G network continues to go down and some actions it is taking to prevent future blackouts, but we wonder just how many outages have really happened.

Yesterday, Verizon said that it’s 4G LTE network was back up and running after its third major crash in December. For those wondering why such a thing could happen–especially to a carrier that prides its service so highly that it plans to charge its customers $2 for the privilege of paying their own bill each month–Verizon has issued an explanation, sort of. In a statement, the company doesn’t directly apologize, but says that “being a pioneer comes with growing pains” and insists that its network is still insanely reliable and will not rest until its 4G LTE network performs “at the very highest levels” that customers have come to expect.

No reasons were given for the recent 4G blackouts. The only thing we know is that “each incident has been different from a technical standpoint” and that Verizon’s engineers have fixed them and moved on.

Verizon is taking some actions to prevent nationwide outages again.

“We are taking a number of steps, working closely with our network suppliers, to ensure the integrity of our 4GLTE Network,” said Verizon. “We continue to fortify and improve its performance, and our goal is that our 4GLTE Network meets the same high standards that our 3G Network has set for performance and reliability. 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. Both will improve performance and reliability.”

The company does not admit to any issues with its 3G network, but does say that it has proactively moved large blocks of users from its 4G network to its 3G network (like on 12/28), when the 4G network was having issues. This transition seems to take time and many users (like us) were left without any data connectivity at all for some time. This complete loss of data has happened to us at least four times in the last week or so, leading us to wonder if the 4G outages are more common than we thought. We reached out to Verizon for clarification, but the media contact listed in the press statement is on vacation.

Again, if you’ve experienced 4G and 3G issues, let us know when, where, and with what devices in the comments below.

Showing 8 comments

David Redmon Nguyen at 10:18pm 30th December 2011 Is that what RIM said last October too?
Tyler Roden at 4:45pm 30th December 2011 Translation: BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH we're still taking your money, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH we don't care BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
L Joshua Eikov at 4:40pm 30th December 2011 Bwhahaha- has to be the funniest corporate excuse yet!!
jesterking at 7:13am 30th December 2011 1.) It's not 4G. It is however LTE. So please stop buying into the marketing. 2.) Growing pains? Really? It's a network. It's not overly complicated. They've been doing this for decades! Are they telling me that they don't know how to handle a wireless network? Wow Verizon... Nice excuse. 3.) I plan on calling them up next month and yelling at them for the $2 charge. I will adjust my bill accordingly ($-2 a month).
1. Jeffrey Van Camp at 7:39am 30th December 2011 I'm with you on all accounts, but I'm willing to call LTE 4G. The definition of 4G being 100MB or higher is a bit ridiculous. It's a next generation network, up from the HSPA and CDMA networks that preceeded it.
  1. jesterking at 7:46am 30th December 2011 Well, that's the only reason why I refuse to call it 4g! lol it's not nearly close to the data transfer rate definition. The "G" nominal is for people who don't understand the standards. They see "G" and they assume it's just the next step. LTE is really just a variant of 3G. 3GPP LTE to be exact.
    Jeffrey Van Camp at 8:31am 30th December 2011 Picky picky! I don't think we'll see true 4G for a while then. I've ceded that actual 100+Mb networks will be called 5G or 6G. Or maybe we'll call it 4GX or just XLTE or something cool with X. Marketers love that letter.
    jesterking at 8:55am 30th December 2011 yeah, I am a purest at heart! I can't stand when something is advertised as something that it isn't. Actually, there was a bill not too long ago to put a squash to the 4G name for LTE networks, because they weren't true 4G speeds. A while? Heck, I'm still waiting on Virtual Reality and hover cars!