No matter how expensive your smartphone is, it still won’t function to its fullest without proper signal and LTE coverage. This is something many US carriers have been realizing lately, and it seems that major companies such as AT&T and Verizon are planning to invest heavily in boosting urban-area LTE coverage. While both of these companies have confirmed plans for expanding signal coverage in various urban areas, it’s the latter that seems to be taking things more seriously. Verizon Wireless has recently announced that it will be installing small cells across areas within San Francisco, in order to greatly improve LTE coverage.
The company is so far prepared to deploy 400 of these small cells, which for those with limited technological backgrounds, will look no differently than some small boxes mounted on utility poles around the city. Verizon states that it will primarily focus on the North Beach, Market Street, Financial District and SOMA areas of the city, which would indicate a tendency to invest more heavily into its business oriented portfolio. Don’t be frightened about huge boxes emerging across your favorite city though – these small cells will not have a huge impact on the scenery and are in fact fairly hard to detect, even when knowing where to look for them. The large number of small cells being deployed is the result of the relatively small effective range of each individual unit. They cover an area of roughly 250-500 square feet.
San Francisco is only one of the major US cities to receive such small cell deployment. Verizon has already taken steps to do the same in other metropolitan areas, particularly New York and Chicago, and is expected to keep doing the same in other major American cities as well.