From January 2020 to April of this year, over 250,000 Verizon wireless customers have moved to Florida causing data traffic to spike.
The operator says that busy-hour traffic in Miami has increased 364%, in Tampa it has increased 135%, in Orlando 408% and in West Palm Beach 165%.
“We are used to seeing seasonal increases in population in Florida and have always accommodated those temporary fluctuations with temporary network assets to add capacity at various times of the year,” said Kyle Malady, EVP and president for global networks and technology at Verizon.
“With the evolution of the distributed workforce resulting from the pandemic, we’re seeing more people permanently change locations to Florida and other places.
“Experiencing the impact of this influx, we revised our forecasting models and are pouring additional capital into the state to grow our coverage and capacity to meet the increased demands.”
The last few years have seen an influx of investment into Miami as preparation for the Super Bowl has led to accelerated network rollouts.
In 2020 and 2021, Verizon expanded its 4G LTE capacity and introduced its 5G Ultra Wideband service with an investment of over $1 billion in the state.
Investment in the next two years will include building more than 3,500 new network solutions including new macro towers, small cell cites and repeaters to increase 4G LTE capacity and coverage while it also aims to expand its 5G Ultra Wideband coverage.
