On Wednesday, Verizon Wireless 4G LTE customers experienced a data outage. Today,Verizon Wireless issued a statement and the outages technical glitches were explained and analysed. Phone calls, texts and other functions continued to operate.
The network experienced "growing pains" from issues that were "regrettable" and "unforeseeable."
John Byrne, analyst with International Data Corp noted because it is the largest active 4G LTE network, you're going to have some hiccups, while it still could be a big problem for the company.
Basically, the outage was caused problems in the delivery core that is replacing the old core for 2G/3G networking. The new delivery core uses for the first time " IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)" in which software bug which caused the first outage in April.
After the software bug was fixed, there were other glitches. The December 7 outage was caused by a failure of a backup database. The next two outages were caused by IMS element miscommunications. After the IMS failures Verizon then enabled 4G LTE phones to connect to 3G network, there was a delay time when users couldn't access the 3G network. Each outage was caused by a new bug.
Tech pundits point out that because Verizon is the biggest and first, users should give Verizon the benefit of the doubt and cut them some slack. AT&T only has a few cities with 4G LTE implemented.
Unfortunately, many 4G LTE users are addicted to the fast speeds of 4G LTE and don't like it when they can't get their information fix for the day.
Here are excerpts from the Verizon Wireless statement we received today:
"The recent issues that affected our customers' 4G LTE service were unforeseen despite careful, diligent planning, deployment and ongoing upgrade programs."
Nonetheless, we estimate that 4G LTE connectivity has been available approximately 99 percent of the time this year.
We are taking a number of steps, working closely with our network suppliers, to ensure the integrity of our 4G LTE Network. We continue to fortify and improve its performance, and our goal is that our 4G LTE Network meets the same high standards that our 3G Network has set for performance and reliability.
Among the numerous measures we have taken or will take are: geographic segmentation, which enables us to isolate, contain and rectify network performance issues, and maintain service to the majority of customers when an issue does develop; and software fixes that we have developed, tested and applied regularly - and will continue to do so. Both will improve performance and reliability.
And finally, we are learning from these issues and applying the same gold standard to our 4G LTE Network that make our 3G Network the nation's largest and most reliable.
The capabilities of 4G LTE have exceeded many expectations.
We will not rest until our 4G LTE network performs at the very highest levels that our customers have come to expect from us.