Verizon Wireless Establishes LTE Innovation Center

Verizon Wireless is establishing an LTE Innovation Center to help foster creative solutions connecting people, places and things wirelessly using LTE technology. The Verizon Wireless LTE Innovation Center seeks to help developers assess what types of new products and services may best succeed in the marketplace.


The facility, which is based in Waltham, Mass., includes a lab for product testing and development, as well as home and business environments designed to simulate usage of products in real-life situations.


A catalyst for early development of non-traditional products for use on LTE networks, the Verizon Wireless LTE Innovation Center is expected to see significant activity across three product areas: 1) consumer electronics and appliances; 2) machine-to-machine (M-2-M) products in the areas of healthcare, security and utility metering; and 3) telematics.


The Verizon Wireless LTE Innovation Center will support early stages of product development, including concept validation, usability studies, product design analysis, prototyping, and lab and field trials. Once a product is proven through the development process and ready to come to market, Verizon Wireless can help the developer quickly access the most appropriate sales channels for a given product.


Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, primary network vendors for Verizon Wireless' initial LTE network deployments and founding partners of the Verizon Wireless LTE Innovation Center, will offer expertise to a wide array of companies, many of which never have had products ripe for commercial deployment on a wireless network. This includes providing commercial-grade hardware and software for prototyping, testing and validation, and resources to help manage the lab and work through any service integration and hand-off design issues that may arise during the testing process.


Brian Higgins will serve as executive director of the Verizon Wireless LTE Innovation Center.
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