Verizon on Thursday announced Capex (capital expenditure) of $17.2 billion to $17.7 billion towards making investment in telecom network infrastructure in 2016.

Verizon has made investment of $17.8 billion (+3.4 percent) in 2015.

The focus area of Verizon is in the expansion of 4G LTE network in the U.S. Verizon’s Wireless capital investment totaled $3.3 billion in fourth-quarter 2015 and $11.7 billion for the year, up 11.5 percent from 2014. Verizon prepares to pilot 5G technology in 2016.

In 2015, Verizon invested approximately $28 billion in spectrum licenses and capital for future network capacity.

Thanks to its investment program in LTE, 4G devices now constitute more than 79 percent of the retail postpaid connections base. LTE network handles approximately 90 percent of total wireless data traffic in Q4 2015. Traffic on Verizon LTE network increased approximately 60 percent in Q4 2015 against Q4 2014.

Verizon has 73 million smartphone users in its customer base.

“Verizon built and acquired next-generation network capabilities that position the company to be an innovator in the digital-first mobile world in 2016 and beyond,” said Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam.

T-Mobile, one of the rivals of Verizon, says the number of Americans covered by Verizon LTE is 308 million against T-Mobile’s 304 million.

T-Mobile said Verizon added LTE coverage to an additional 5 million people in 2015 against 100 million by T-Mobile US.

Customers of Verizon, according to T-Mobile, used 2.37 GB of data per month as compared with 3.57 GB in the case of T-Mobile.

T-Mobile claims that it offered 21.7 Mbps download speed and 12 Mbps upload speed on its 4G network. T-Mobile says Verizon offered 20.3 Mbps download speed and 9 Mbps upload speed on its 4G network.

Verizon Wireless reported 1.5 million retail postpaid net additions in Q4 2015 and 4.5 million for 2015. These net additions do not include any wholesale or IoT connections.

Operating revenues of Verizon rose 3.2 percent to $34.3 billion in Q4, and 3.6 percent to $131.6 billion in 2015. Current-quarter and third-quarter revenues include results from AOL.

Verizon’s IoT business achieved $200 million revenue in Q4 2015 and $690 million (+18 percent) in 2015.

Baburajan K
[email protected]