This is Verizon’s 3G coverage map. See those little white spots amongst the green? More specifically, the ones in California? Those are the spots where Verizon’s 3G coverage is completely absent or mostly lacking. And, well, Verizon hates them – so much, in fact, that they’ve been spending millions of dollars every day to get rid of them.
According to Verizon themselves, the company pumped roughly $485 million into their data network in California in 2009. That works out to a bit over $1.3 million each and every day. All-in-all, the company has spent $5.7 billion in California, and $55 billion nationally since they launched in June of 2000.
So where’s that money going? New cell towers, primarily, followed by capacity improvements to towers that are already in place.