Verizon looks to team with developers via LTE application center

Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) formally opened its LTE Application Innovation Center in San Francisco, promising to work with application developers to create new apps specifically optimized for the company's LTE network.

The center will serve as a proving ground for new applications for Verizon's LTE devices. During a webcast of an event to unveil the center, Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead said the center will "test, challenge and make better what our customers will do with their phones and other wireless devices."

Verizon Wireless CMO Marni Walden said the center was launched in San Francisco so that the company could be closer to "the heart of the developer community" in Silicon Valley and develop LTE apps for both consumers and enterprise customers.

Verizon Wireless CTO David Small said app developers will be invited to seminars and demonstrations to test and discuss their apps. The center will also have office space where engineers and Verizon network experts can work with the developers using a full replica of Verizon's commercial LTE network. Small said developers will have access to pre-production network APIs, be able to smooth port their apps across smartphone platforms and will be able to test out new hardware and software to speed time to market.

Ultimately, Small said the prupose of the center is to allow developers to test their ideas so that "what reaches customers will work better than if a developer went straight to market."

Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam highlighted the application center in January at the Consumer Electronics Show, though Verizon first mentioned the idea for the center in 2009. The apps innovation center will serve as a complement to Verizon's other LTE Innovation Center in Waltham, Mass., which the company opened last month. Verizon noted that the two centers will be connected organizationally and will work on joint projects to develop LTE solutions.

For more:
- see this release
- see this webcast

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