Verizon in Alaska: three years in the making and growing.

• Author: Slaten, Russ
• Position: TELECOM & TECHNOLOGY

After three years of building its network, its offices, and its stores, Verizon has arrived in Alaska. Verizon launched its Alaska network and stores September 19, the same day as the iPhone 6 release. Verizon invested more than $120 million dollars in Alaska to build its operations in the state, says Verizon Retail District Manager Chris Fitzgerald. At its launch, Verizon opened a smart store in East Anchorage, a kiosk in the Dimond Center, a smart store in Fairbanks, and offered its products and services at more than thirty additional retail locations through a network of agent partners across the state. As Verizon moves forward in its distribution plan, every new corporate store will be a smart store, Fitzgerald says.

At the grand opening celebration of the Verizon Wireless store in the Tikahtnu Commons in East Anchorage, Fitzgerald explained the interactive smart store setup.

"These stores were designed to be very customer-focused. Everything on display is live and interactive so our consumers can touch, feel, and test all of our products and services," Fitzgerald says.

Broken into four "lifestyle zones," the store caters to wireless users looking to accessorize their phones for music, fitness, health and home efficiency/productivity. The smart stores give customers a chance to find connected electronics which enable the smartphone to control the thermostat or light switch, even when traveling. The store also provides a space for people desiring to learn more about the products and how to use them with the 'Wireless U' learning table in the center of the store, and it brings the HD voice services and other advances in the market for Alaskans to experience themselves.

Nationwide Rates in Alaska

Verizon will offer the same prices in Alaska as they do in the Lower 48, Fitzgerald says. The More Everything plan starts at $40 per month and includes unlimited talk and text, international messaging, free personal hotspot, twenty-five gigabytes of cloud storage, and the option to add other users with paid sharable data--for More Everything on a smartphone with 2GB of data add $50 per month.

The business plans offer many discounts as competitors do, but Verizon says its network separates it from the others with greater reliability, faster speeds, and the largest 4G LTE footprint, both in Alaska and the entire United States. The 4G LTE network is ten times faster than 3G. Alaska is Verizon's first LTE-only market. Additionally, Verizon offers...