Verizon Wireless will expand its already large high-speed, long-term evolution data 
network in the next month, adding an additional 21 markets by Oct. 20, the carrier said.
The busy wireless provider, the nation's top carrier by subscribers. already announced 20 more markets for LTE last week.
The latest markets are Birmingham, Ala.; Fort Myers, Fla.; Tupelo, Miss.; Asheville, NC; Bartlesville, Okla.; Jackson, Tenn.; Modesto and Stockton Calif.; Albuquerque and Santa Fe, NM; Norfolk-Virginia Beach and Richmond, Va,. Hagerstown, Md.; Terre Haute, Bloomington, Elkhart, Evansville and South Bend, Ind.; and Sioux City and Green Bay, Wis.
Verizon announced the new areas in separate news releases across the country and did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Big News
The additional markets come as rival AT&T , the second-biggest carrier by subscribers, rolled out its own LTE network this week in Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, Texas.
Verizon Wireless now sells five smartphones ready to rock on its LTE network: HTC's Thunderbolt, Motorola's Droid Bionic, LG's Revolution, Samsung's Droid Charge and, as of this week, the Pantech Breakout, which is priced to sell at $99. Verizon also sells a netbook, tablet , data modems and mobile hotspots for its LTE network.
But AT&T's network is currently available only for its LTE tablet, HTC's 10.1-inch Jetstream, two data sticks for laptops, and a mobile hotspot, the Elevate 4G . The carrier has yet to unveil any smartphones equipped for the new network.
Charles King, principal analyst for Pund-IT , said the expansion of LTE was "big news from Verizon."
The carrier hit an early bump in the road in April, shortly after it launched the Thunderbolt as its first LTE smartphone , with a widespread outage of the new network. Verizon never explained the cause of the outage, which was quickly fixed.
King said it was unlikely that fast implementation would lead to other technical problems.
"At one level, the company has probably weighed the risks and decided they can fulfill their service contracts," said King. "But it's worth asking why the company is moving so rapidly in a popular market that's frankly still in its early phases."
'Catch Me If You Can'
King says the answer is simple: "So long as AT&T believes the T-Mobile deal may still have a heartbeat, it will delay significant movement in its own LTE implementations," he said. "That makes it important for Verizon to be as expedient with LTE as possible so it gains first-mover benefits and creates a market lead that AT&T will have to break its back to match, let alone surpass."
Verizon says LTE data users can expect speeds of five to 12 megabits per second for downloads and two to five mbps for uploads, and AT&T says its network will match those rates.
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