TIA 2011: Verizon's Melone reflects on the primary drivers of LTE

DALLAS — The wireless industry has underestimated consumer demands for broadband capacity and speeds every step along the way, Tony Melone, EVP and CTO at Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), said in a morning keynote here at the Telecommunications Industry Association’s annual show.
“They imagine, actually they demand access to everything at their fingertips,” he said, adding that the industry can’t afford not to stay ahead of technology going forward.
“One of the primary drivers of this transformation is high-quality, high-definition video,” he said. “(Video) is penetrating our homes, our schools, our offices — it’s even in elevators, in taxis and shopping carts today.”
Melone pointed to mobility as the other transformational driver that consumers see everywhere they go in their daily lives. “Whole new computing platforms for mobile broadband have emerged,” he continued.
To help meet that expanding ecosystem and make broadband more readily available across the nation, Verizon plans to virtually blanket all of the country with LTE coverage within the next three years. The carrier also plans to increase coverage and capacity on its 3G CDMA network, he said.
Verizon is on track to have around 10 LTE devices in its lineup by the second half of this year, he said, and it plans to make VoLTE (voice over LTE) commercially available sometime in later 2012.
“Our network performance to date has even exceeded our own internal high expectations,” Melone added. The dual forces of faster speeds and lower latency rates are effectively making LTE such a transformational network and service.
On the whole, the story of mobility is “a story of growth, a story of innovation and a story of partnership” that’s driving one of the greatest areas of economic growth today, he said.
Concluding his chat on stage, Melone said: “Verizon’s early and unwavering commitment to LTE has allowed us to shape this ecosystem.” No single company can do it alone, he said, and more work needs to be done at the various involved standards bodies to ramp up adoption and innovation around LTE.