Verizon Gives Fancy XLTE Name to Its Use of Added Spectrum

Verizon Wireless confirmed on Monday that it plans to start using the XLTE brand name to refer to its use of added spectrum for high-speed service.

For some time now, Verizon has been expanding its LTE network to use both its traditional spectrum and the AWS band. Verizon has been touting the effort, in particular, as a way to ease congestion in crowded urban markets.

Now, though, Verizon sees an opportunity to get a marketing boost for the effort.

“XLTE is a consumer-friendly way of describing the added capacity (bandwidth) that is being delivered to VZW customers by activating our 4G service on our AWS spectrum,” a Verizon representative told Re/code.

Verizon is not alone in seeking to use added spectrum to improve its LTE network. T-Mobile, for example, is tapping MetroPCS’ spectrum to broaden its LTE network as well, while Sprint has a longer-term Sprint Spark effort designed to boost speeds and add LTE capacity.

XLTE is not, despite its name, the next generation of LTE technology. Carriers are also working on using various new LTE-Advanced technologies, such as carrier aggregation, to boost speeds.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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