Verizon to open new Waltham, Massachusetts 4G & FiOS Innovation & Research Center

Verizon Communications Inc. says it plans to start building a new research center in Waltham, Massachusetts focused around 4G wireless Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. Verizon Wireless currently is piloting an LTE network deployment in parts of Boston. The new Verizon Waltham Technology Innovation Center will eventually house more than 300 scientists and researchers, officials said, most of whom are already working for Verizon in two exisitng buildings at that location.

In addition to its LTE research, the new Waltham campus will house researchers working on other Verizon offerings. LTE is the major focus of that building, but there will also be other Verizon work going on, including the further development of FiOS.

The campus at 117 West St. in Waltham will include three buildings once the new one is finished. In addition to the research space, it will house offices, as well as an executive briefing center.

As of August 2009, Verizon had 10 LTE 4G cell sites running around Greater Boston in its pilot deployment. LTE wireless service is expected to provide up to 10 times the speed – or about 8 megabits per second – of current 3G services. In March, Verizon announced that in its pilot deployments it was seeing average speeds of between 5Mbps and 12Mbps on a download in real world use, with peaks as high as 50Mbps.