Verizon is a carrier with a love/hate relationship in the world of tech blogs and Android aficionados alike. While they tend to trend on the more expensive side of things and almost always do something weird with that awesome new phone you wanted, they arguably have the best network around. That’s for a number of reasons, but particularly because they take so much of that money your monthly bill costs and put it right back into infrastructure, ensuring that you not only have the best coverage possible but the best speeds when they can help it. It’s a promise they’ve leaned on for years and so far have delivered on, and XLTE is their next big promise to live up to. Basically XLTE is a way for Verizon to double LTE speeds by utilizing the 700MHz spectrum they’ve had available as well as their existing spectrum, essentially giving you double the bandwith without having to make any modifications to your phone.
Verizon already has 28 devices on the market that support XLTE, and as long as you own a phone that came out around this time last year up until today you’re nearly guaranteed to have XLTE capabilities when XLTE is enabled in your market. Verizon has put together an impressive infographic that shows just how good their network has become, the most astounding might just be that they purport 97% of Americans are covered by their 4G LTE network. Verizon has poured $9.4 billion into their network in 2013, much of that being for the XLTE build out that’s still taking place today. Over 250 markets already have XLTE enabled and running, and Verizon is guaranteeing at least a 2x increase in speed in those markets, citing as high as 100MBPS actual throughput rates in some areas. Verizon is also touting that 73% of all data that comes across their network is running off 4G LTE radios, meaning that most of Verizon’s mobile network data is super high speed data. All this helps build Verizon’s claim to fame in their network and leaves us wondering how long it will take before the other carriers catch up.
