US carrier Verizon Wireless has announced that it is expanding its LTE network into an additional nine metropolitan markets, taking the total number of markets covered  up to 55.

The operator said that its LTE network is now available in Montgomery, Alabama; Greater Fairfield and New Haven, Connecticut; Gainesville, Pensacola and Tallahassee, Florida; Fayetteville-Lumberton, North Carolina; and Bryan-College Station and Temple-Killeen, Texas.

David Small, its chief technical officer said in a statement, “We’re now offering consumers and businesses in 55 metropolitan areas. We plan to bring 4G LTE mobile broadband to our entire 3G coverage area by the end of 2013.”

In terms of handsets the company has recently added the Samsung Droid Charge handset to its roster, in addition to the HTC Thunderbolt. It also has mobile hotspot devices from ZTE and Samsung, and three USB modems from Novatel, Pantech and LG. Novatel has also announced an embedded module for Verizon’s LTE, which could pave the way for LTE enabled laptops and tablets. The operator said its customers could enjoy average download data speeds of between 5-12Mbps and 2-5Mbps on the uplink.

Verizon Wireless is currently the largest operator in the US, with 32.85 per cent of the market according to Informa WCIS statistics.