Verizon Vows To Build the First 5G Network In the US (networkworld.com)

alphadogg writes: Verizon says it will have the first 5G network in the U.S., a promise it probably can't fulfill until 2020 but will start working at this year. Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo made the pledge Thursday on the company's fourth-quarter financial results call. He also repeated the company's plans for so-called 5G trials this year.

Comments

at $15 a gig in overages they will pay off the cos

[Joe_Dragon]

at $15 a gig in overages they will pay off the cost fast.

Why? 4g is fast enough

[FlyHelicopters]

Ok, maybe I'm missing it, but 4g seems fast enough to me.

I can watch video, play games, use apps, browse the web, etc. on 4g now.

I'm struggling to imagine what I'd need another big speed boost for?

Not that I'm against it, I am just trying to see the need. If it solves other issues, such as allowing more total traffic in the same radio spectrum, then fair enough, but the summary doesn't say that.

So what are you doing with your phones that needs more speed?

Re:Why? 4g is fast enough

[alvinrod]

Speed isn't an issue for me, it's bandwidth.

With the current caps and bandwidth limits in place, adding more speed is like dropping a bigger engine in a Ferrari that can only be driven on a quarter-mile track with a giant brick wall at the end. What's the point besides getting to crash into the wall that much sooner?

However, given how bloated websites are getting due to so much javascript, shitty advertising, and other cruft, they may need the speed boost just to keep the page load times reasonable.

Why is it called 5G?

[darkain]

Why is it called 5G? Because that's how much throughput you're allowed each month.

Re:Why? 4g is fast enough

[tnk1]

I need a fifth G. I have an iPhone with a 6, which means my G's are two behind. I can tolerate maybe being one G behind, but this is getting ridiculous.

Re:at $15 a gig in overages they will pay off the

[msauve]

Sorry, your answer doesn't count unless you show the math.

Verizon is consistently rated as having the best network in the US. That costs money to build out, maintain, and upgrade.

Currently, Sprint is losing money, T-Mo's profit margin is 1.68%, ATT's is 3.68%. Verizon's is 7.86%. Companies which don't have infrastructure of that scale to build and maintain: Apple's margin is 22.85%, MSFT 13.52%, GOOG 22.86%.

Your implication that VZW is vastly overcharging simply doesn't fit the facts, but does make a good populist sound bite.

Re: at $15 a gig in overages they will pay off the

[msauve]

"Hey, dumbass, guess what. Voice communication uses more data than texts or video streaming,"

Hey, AC, guess what? You're extremely wrong. A full telco fidelity G.711 voice stream uses ~64 kbps (unidirectional). The recommended speech codec for VoLTE is G.722.2, which provides HD audio in <24 kbps. What video streaming are you doing in a 64 k channel? You can't even do decent stereo audio with that.