AUSTIN, TX – Responding to an unexpected exponential influx of people to Texas during and following the pandemic, Verizon pledged significantly more investment in the state to manage the increased usage on its network. As part of the $97.9 million additional investment in the Lone Star state, Verizon engineers have been busy at work adding capacity, coverage and upgrading service in Austin, TX.
“We know how critical reliable, consistent, high-performing wireless connectivity is, and we are working hard to deliver the highest quality service possible to Austin,” said Phillip French, Vice President of Engineering and Operations for Verizon. “Our teams are committed in Austin and across Texas, where we’re seeing tremendous growth, to out-work our competitors every day in order to meet our promise to our customers.”
In 2023, Verizon engineers in Austin have turned on 11 new macro cell sites (large coverage cell sites) and 91 new small cell sites, adding capacity and coverage in Pflugerville, Georgetown, Leander, Buda, Circle C and The Domain areas. And they are not slowing down. Sixteen additional macro cell sites will be coming online in the next few months which will add capacity and coverage toDel Valle, Georgetown, Bee Cave, East Austin, Creedmore, Leander, NW Austin, Mueller, East Kyle, Austin Executive Airport, and Pflugerville.
Along with these new cell sites, Verizon engineers have been dramatically expanding access to 5G service throughout Austin using Verizon’s newly acquired C-band spectrum. As of last month, Austin residents and visitors are now able to use a full 140 MHz of spectrum, more than doubling the 5G bandwidth available to serve customers throughout Austin. This allows Verizon to more quickly expand and enhance its 5G Ultra Wideband network, providing much greater capacity to accommodate more customers and more robust services, as well as enable higher data speeds. This additional spectrum will also allow Verizon to offer 5G Home broadband and Business Internet services to more customers throughout Austin.
The Moody Center, home to many legendary concerts, performances and sporting events has also recently gotten an upgrade. The Center has been modernized with a Verizon managed Distributed Antenna System (DAS), a wireless network of antennas throughout the arena allowing for better performance and greater capacity to accommodate fans’ needs. The speeds and capacity provided by this state-of-the-art system rivals any NBA Arena.
Lastly, the addition of 5G service and the many additional wireless solutions allow far more data to travel on the wireless network in Austin. That exponential increase in data carried into and out of the cell sites serving the community requires upgraded fiber optic cable links. Fiber optic cables are used to move data between cell sites and connect those sites to the rest of the network. Verizon has increased the capacity on the fiber connections in many cell sites in the Austin area so they can carry 10 times the amount of data.
