Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless’ leadership is reportedly committed to "fostering global collaboration and enabling the broader ecosystem needed to exploit the capabilities of a great network."

 

That was the message from Tony Melone, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Verizon Wireless. Melone outlined Verizon Wireless' path to LTE (News - Alert) at the LTE Americas 2009 Conference.

 

During his keynote address, Melone said that 4G is really about embedding broadband wireless into the consumer's life and also about embedding broadband wireless into the basic functions of business and industry. Verizon Wireless believes that the combination of its aggressive deployment and single-frequency footprint will attract premium partners and make it the first place that device and applications developers come to sell  its products, and ultimately, the first place that customers come to for their 4G services.

 

Melone said that in addition to building one of the first 4G LTE wireless networks in the world, Verizon Wireless is taking a proactive approach to fuel this ecosystem of innovation through a number of collaborative initiatives. The first of these is open development established to help third-party developers create and certify devices to run on the company's network. The Verizon LTE Innovation Center is another initiative for early development of both traditional and non-traditional products to help the consumer electronics and other industries quickly bring products to market for use on 4G LTE networks.

 

The Verizon Developer Community and V CAST Apps is a group of application developers that can take advantage of the company's scale and distribution to market their applications to Verizon Wireless customers through its forthcoming application store. Another collaborative initiative from Verizon Wireless is the 4G Venture Forum. This entity brings together highly regarded venture capital funds, along with its primary infrastructure providers, to identify and commercialize innovation that will harness 4G wireless networks.

 

Verizon Wireless has a strategic partnership with Google through which both companies devote substantial resources to accelerate delivery of leading-edge innovation. This in turn leverages the Verizon Wireless network and the Android (News - Alert) open platform to put unique applications in the hands of consumers quickly.

 

The company is also involved in a venture with China Mobile, Japan's Softbank and Vodafone (News - Alert) to develop a software platform to allow developers to create mobile applications to run seamlessly across multiple operating systems. This type of collaboration from LTE enables equipment vendors and manufacturers, network operators, application and widgets developers as well as customers to benefit from the simplicity, efficiencies and economies of scale created by a global standard.

 

In his address, Melone cited "One Voice," an effort by Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and seven other companies as another example of global collaboration. Even while pursuing these collaborative initiatives, Verizon Wireless remains focused on building the best wireless networks.