Verizon Users Whacked With Another LTE Outage

Verizon's 4G LTE network has been knocked offline again just two months after its last serious outage.

Verizon Wireless has acknowledged reports of the outage on its official Twitter account and the company says it "is investigating customer issues in connecting to the 4G LTE data network." Verizon says its 3G data network, its voice and its SMS services are all "operating reliably" at this time.

Customers Wednesday morning from Columbus, Ohio, to northern Virginia to Phoenix have been commiserating over the service outage on Verizon forums. Others have taken to Twitter, with comments such as "Again, you guys are getting worst [sic] by the day.." and "Monthly drill now Verizon?"

FLASHBACK: Verizon says LTE network back online

FLASH FURTHER BACK: Verizon acknowledges 4G LTE outage

Both Engadget and the Boy Genius Report started receiving reports from Verizon users about an LTE outage this morning that apparently spanned much of the United States. Engadget said readers in both the Midwest and the Western United States reported the network going down, while BGR notes that users on Verizon forums have been complaining about the outage all across the country.

The latest outage is the first major LTE outage for Verizon since its LTE network was knocked offline three times in the span of a month this past December. Verizon's LTE network also went down last April when users were similarly knocked down to the company's 3G EV-DO Rev. A network for days before Verizon got the 4G network back up and running.

LTE is essentially a bridge from 3G technologies such as HSPA and EV-DO Rev. A to the 4G IMT-Advanced technologies that the International Telecommunications Union has said will support speeds up to 100Mbps. So far Verizon and AT&T have been the only major wireless carriers to commercially launch LTE services in the United States while Sprint plans on launching its own LTE services over the course of 2012.

Having Verizon LTE outage issues? Share your thoughts with Brad at breed@nww.com and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bwreednww

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This story, "Verizon Users Whacked With Another LTE Outage" was originally published by Network World.