Verizon today officially announced that its 5G broadband internet service will launch next month. The company says that installations will begin in select cities on October 1st, with service activating immediately after the install is complete.
The initial cities that will support Verizon 5G home broadband are:
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Los Angeles, California
- Sacramento, California
- Houston, Texas
Verizon notes, however, that not everyone in these cities will have access at first. Instead, it will be rolling out to specific zip codes. If you live in one of the lucky four cities, you can head to Verizon’s First on 5G website to check your zip code starting on Thursday, September 13th at 8AM ET (via CNET).
As far as pricing is concerned, Verizon Wireless customers can get in at $50 per month, while everyone else will pay $70 per month. Verizon is sweetening the deal by offering initial customers a free Chromecast or Apple TV 4K, as well as three months of free YouTube TV.
Verizon promises speeds of between 300 megabits per second to 1 gigabit per second through its home broadband 5G service. The are a whole slew of nuances that come with using the 5G nomenclature, and many will point out that this 5G home broadband network from Verizon isn’t technically 5G.
The 5G that Verizon is rolling out is not true mobile 5G at this point. Verizon is using proprietary network technology – not the 5G standards introduced last year. Verizon says that it will be able to expand its 5G service at a quicker pace once it makes the move to industry-standard 5G equipment. Verizon says that customers will be transitioned to the ‘5G New Radio (NR)’ standard for free.
In typical carrier fashion, Verizon defends its use of the ‘5G’ branding with a whole bunch of marketing speak. In many ways, this all echoes back to the HSPA+ ‘4G’ rollout.
To deliver the full potential of 5G, a company must possess three fundamental assets:
- Massive spectrum holdings, particularly in the millimeter wave bands. This is the only spectrum available today with the bandwidth available to realize the maximum potential for capacity, throughput and latency.
- End-to-end deep fiber resources.
- Ability to deploy large numbers of small cells.
The truth is, 5G is only as good as the network it runs on and Verizon is the only company that brings all three pieces together for its customers through our 5G Ultra Wideband solutions.
Verizon has led the technology industry with our clear focus on bringing 5G service to consumers as quickly as possible. That’s why our 5G Home service is built on our proprietary 5G TF standard; we are able to deliver results and a 5G network faster than waiting for the formal 3GPP 5G NR standard to be incorporated into network equipment, devices, chipsets and software. As our 5G technology partners bring that hardware, software, chipsets and devices to market on the 3GPP 5G NR standard, we’ll upgrade First On 5G Members to that equipment at no charge. When new network equipment is available and introduced, we’ll expand our 5G broadband internet coverage area quickly and bring 5G to additional cities.
More details on the service and Verizon’s use of the ‘5G’ branding can be found here.
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