Verizon could be working on increasing the speed of its phone network in New York, by performing a new LTE rollout. The carrier has apparently been spotted operating a new LTE network, which is shown to be providing network speeds of around 80Mbps downstream, and peaking at almost 23Mbps for uploads.
Milan Milanovic told GigaOM that his spectrum analyzer showed the network as operating on the 2.1GHz Advanced Wireless Services band, and was able to be connected to using an iPhone 5s. The new connections could end up offering a 150Mbps theoretical maximum, with the carrier apparently deploying the network on 40MHz of spectrum in some areas thanks to the acquisition of 4G licenses from cable companies last year. It is thought that the 80Mbps achieved on the test network is due to either an artificial data rate restriction or an insufficient fiber backhaul.
The same high-speed network is apparently also being tested in Los Angeles in Chicago, though these rumors were not able to be confirmed to the same level as the New York trials. A launch date for the mystery network is also unknown.
