Following the recent expansion of its commercial CDMA2000 1x EV-DO network to include 14 major markets and 24 airport locations nationwide last month, Verizon Wireless is set to add 16 more markets by the end of this year.
Speaking at the USTA Telecom ’04 Conference in Las Vegas, Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon Communications Inc.’s chairman and chief executive officer, said the company plans to add 16 more EV-DO markets by the end of the year, bringing the network’s total coverage to nearly 75 million customers. Seidenberg did not provide additional details on which markets would receive the high-speed wireless data service by year-end.
Verizon Wireless previously announced that it planned to deploy EV-DO technology across nearly one-third of its network by the end of this year on its way to covering two-thirds of its network by the end of 2005 as part of its $1 billion investment in the technology.
“This broadband deployment hasn’t been cheap,” Seidenberg said during the USTA Telecom ’04 Conference in Las Vegas. “But customers want the features faster, and in order to meet their needs, we need to break out the checkbook.”
Sprint PCS, which has yet to commercially launch EV-DO, has announced a similar investment in deploying the technology across its network by the end of next year. Smaller EV-DO launches are also expected sometime next year by regional CDMA carriers Alltel Corp. and U.S. Cellular Corp.
