In reversal of fortune, Verizon now investing to catch up with AT&T

Verizon seems to have heard enough about studies showing that AT&T’s LTE network is the fastest in the United States. Bloomberg reports that Verizon “is planning a sweeping upgrade of its network this year after surging congestion and deteriorating speed allowed AT&T to close the gap on service quality.” The report notes that Verizon is in some ways a victim of its own success since the carrier’s biggest problem is the congestion that has come from being the most popular wireless carrier in the U.S. To that end, the company is looking to aggressively expand capacity on its network by using the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum that it acquired from several cable companies last year to effectively double the speeds of its current services.