To Build Out LTE, Verizon Selects… Everybody?

That’s how it seemed anyway, yesterday.  In a blizzard of press releases, Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) Wireless announced a small army of companies that will be helping roll out their 4G LTE network over the next year or two.  First of all, they will be using gear from Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings) for backhaul, which is a significant win for the equipment giant – they will apparently be the only provider involved end to end.  And then the company announced its backhaul partners outside of its home turf in the northeast. 

In the Midwest, ftwr will be helping out with its hybrid fiber/wireless backhaul systems in Ohio and Michigan.   They’ve had a relationship with Verizon Wireless for a few years.   Telecom Transport Management will be supporting the rollout in Minnesota.  That’s a new name for me, I’ll have to do some reading.

In the South, Verizon Wireless will be working with a variety of alternative providers.  They will leverage the regional fiber tag team of DukeNet and PalmettoNet in the Carolinas.  Meanwhile, US Carrier will be helping out in Georgia and Paradigm Telecom will be adding its own efforts in an expanded relationship with the wireless giant throughout the region.  And where those providers don’t go, Conterra will be there with its wireless backhaul solutions, which we profiled on Telecom Ramblings last year.

And out in the West, q will be a go-to provider in its home territories, providing backhaul via its Mobile Ethernet Backhaul product.  Since nobody else goes everywhere the sprawling ILEC goes in the sparsely populated west, their participation was inevitable.  And fellow ILEC CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings) will be supporting the rollout in Las Vegas and other parts of Nevada.

And finally, they announced more details regarding the network’s operation.  They will deploy Camiant’s Policy Control solutions to deploy, control, and otherwise monitor the services they will be providing over the network.   Anritsu’s BTS Master handheld base station analyzer will be used in Boston and Seattle.  And they will use 7 layers as a testing platform for LTE devices.

Wow.  Did I miss anybody?

Oh yeah.  Verizon Wireless will be working with… drum roll please … Verizon.  Hard to remember sometime that Vodafone owns half of the Wireless division, which is operated independently.  Still, in Verizon’s home turf we sort of already knew who would be providing backhaul, yes?

Sheesh, you’d think they’d space these things out.  Actually, there are probably some still to come – or that I missed.

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Categories: ILECs, PTTs · Metro fiber · Wireless