Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile phone operator in the United States, has recently unveiled a few more details on its approach towards Long Time Evolution, the standard that it will use for the deployment of its 4G network. According to the company, it will roll out the first LTE network in the US, and it is also committed to network leadership, something that also involves “fostering global collaboration and enabling the broader ecosystem needed to exploit the capabilities of a great network.”

Tony Melone, Verizon Wireless senior vice president and chief technology officer, is the one who stated the above, and he also talked about Verizon's belief that 4G did not imply only faster speeds, higher bandwidth and lower latency. “We believe the combination of our aggressive deployment and our single-frequency footprint will attract premium partners and make Verizon Wireless the first place that device and applications developers come to sell their products, and ultimately, the first place that customers come to for their 4G services,” Melone said.

The carrier is one of the first in the world to deploy an LTE network, and it plans on enriching the ecosystem of innovation through a series of collaboration initiatives, such as:

- Open Development – third-party developers can build and certify devices for Verizon's network, through a tested and proven certification process;
- Verizon LTE Innovation Center – meant to enable fast delivery of products for 4G LTE networks;
- Verizon Developer Community and V CAST Apps – a group of application developers that can market their applications through Verizon's application store;
- 4G Venture Forum – bringing together venture capital funds for identifying and commercializing innovation for 4G networks;
- Strategic Partnership with Google – aimed at accelerating innovation for Verizon's network and for the Android platform;
- Joint Innovation Lab – a venture with China Mobile, Japan’s Softbank and Vodafone aimed at application development.

“This type of collaboration was virtually non-existent in our 2G and 3G world,” Melone said. “But LTE offers that global sandbox we all can play in. From equipment vendors and manufacturers, to network operators, to application and widgets developers, and finally and most important, through to our customers – the entire ecosystem can benefit from the simplicity, efficiencies and economies of scale created by a global standard.”

As many of you might already know, Verizon also participated, along with seven other companies, in the development of “One Voice,” an initiative aimed at enabling Voice and SMS Over LTE and international interoperability between LTE networks. Melone also added that the company was determined to build the best LTE network, and reiterated that it would approach the roll-out in an aggressive manner, as it intended to launch the 4G network in 25 to 30 markets in 2010, covering almost its entire 3G footprint by 2013.