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Verizon To Begin 5G User Trials in 11 Markets by Middle of Year (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the need-for-speed dept.

Verizon will test faster fifth-generation (5G) mobile broadband service in 11 markets in the first half of this year as the nation's largest wireless carrier tries to take the lead in the 5G race. From a report on Bloomberg: Working with equipment partners including Ericsson and Samsung, Verizon will beam 5G signals to a test group of homes and businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Atlanta; Bernardsville, New Jersey; Brockton, Massachusetts; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Miami; Sacramento, California; Seattle; and Washington, D.C., according to a statement released as part of Mobile World Congress, which starts this week in Barcelona. While 5G service isn't expected to be commercially available until 2020, Verizon and its closest rival, AT&T, are bringing the technology out of the lab and into the hands of actual users to spur development.

20 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So I'll be able to blow through my entire data plan at 5G speeds in about 700 ms and still be told that paying $5 per GB is a great deal?

    1. Re:Awesome! by schnell · · Score: 2

      Whatever 5G ends up being, it won't look like a traditional cellular service. The spectrum that it uses (in the 30 GHz range) is subject to serious atmospheric signal attenuation (especially compared to the 700 MHz bands typically used for LTE) and it won't reliably penetrate walls of any thickness. So it will be largely useless for cellular phones.

      Instead, imagine it as just another last mile technology for fixed wireless. You'll have a 5G receiver hung on the exterior of your house, and you will now have an alternative to [CABLE COMPANY] or [PHONE COMPANY] for your home broadband service. One of the upsides to using such high spectrum bands is that you can jam a lot more data into the frequency, so it's likely to be priced (and have caps) that look more like a cable/fiber connection rather than a cellular plan. So, not a bad thing... but not going to change the way you use your cellphone, either.

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    2. Re:Awesome! by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Seeing at&t offer 500GB on their LTE network for $100 and $10/10GB overage has changed my mind about that.

      I'd still prefer unlimited but I could get by with 500GB easily enough.

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    3. Re:Awesome! by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      How much do you think this will hurt WISPs?
      I'm assuming it will work over shorter distances than most WISPs operate over today but this in combination with further densification and extra bands of LTE should make them very competitive.

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    4. Re:Awesome! by schnell · · Score: 1

      I would imagine that if you are in an area where you are using a WISP today, it's probably lacks the population density for the carriers to bother deploying 5G there. The only exception would likely be if you are in an area served by copper phone lines that the carrier (if it's the home ILEC) wants to rip up and get rid of.

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  2. 5G is for more than gaming by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

    As I understand it 5G *can* provide real-time haptic feedback. It's good for gaming, yes. But more important so that little things, such VR/AR surgeries, can be done remotely.

    Is this BS? I don't know.

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    1. Re:5G is for more than gaming by mjwx · · Score: 1

      As I understand it 5G *can* provide real-time haptic feedback. It's good for gaming, yes. But more important so that little things, such VR/AR surgeries, can be done remotely.

      Is this BS? I don't know.

      The problem with gaming isn't speed, its latency. You're better off gaming on a slower connection with lower latency. You dont really need to go much faster than 1 MBps, what you want is your latency server to client to be under 100 ms. Realistically, with good net code, you can play on 56K dialup as I did in the early 00's (Vietcong, BF1942 to local servers).

      And due to the laws of physics and the inherent in wireless technologies, latency cannot be guaranteed. Hit some interference and lose some packets in the 2.5 miles between you and the tower and that'll kill your ping. Any gamer knows wired is much faster than wireless, even if it's crappy ADSL.

      Besides, given Verizons history of marketing slow technologies as "next generation" like they did with calling WiMax 4G when it wasn't even a 3.5G tech like HSPA+ I'm willing to bet it wont even be as fast as the LTE I currently get from EE here in England.

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  3. Don't care. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Speed is not important when I have a 2GB cap with $15/per GB overage.

    1. Re:Don't care. by link-error · · Score: 1

      Cricket is the 3rd priority tier for AT&T. I tried it, and had tons of problems with messages not going through, or calls not ringing through. Dropped it after about 1 month. AT&T Go is their 2nd tier, and I find it much better QOS than Cricket.

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  4. Re:Fake news, they aren't spending billions by b0bby · · Score: 1

    The gear-makers aren't doing this for their health, any money they spend is most likely going to end up being covered by the carriers. Maybe not just US carriers, but carriers are the ones buying their gear.

  5. Re:Fake news, they aren't spending billions by BuckaBooBob · · Score: 2

    Considering there is no Technology out there today that is actually 5G the story is full of Corporate sponsored "Facts"... The ITU is the body that helps (or forces depends how you look t it) Telecommunications systems conform to standards has not yet finished defining what is required for 5G.... The last time carriers pulled this crap was with 4G... the ITU laid out what 4G was and suddenly all of the 4G networks that carriers were advertising were actually 3G networks pushed to their limits... so they pressured the ITU to align 4G with what was already deployed..

    Since they bent over backwards last time the carriers made up their own definition they are doing the same again today without a clear definition of what 5G is they are telling everyone that the 4G system they have is really a 5G network cause they want to make more money...

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  6. Verizon $28 billion in 2015, annual report by raymorris · · Score: 2

    If you want to know about the financials of a public company, you look at the same document the company's owners (stockholders) look at, its annual report. It's about 80 pages or so detailing how much they spent, on what, how much revenue they had from what sources, etc. Here's Verizon's:

    http://www.verizon.com/about/s...

    You'll see they invested $28 billion in increasing capacity. Of that, $5 billion is wireline (POTS) and $23 billion is wireless.

  7. Verizon spent $5 billion upgrading wired last year by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Well no, people complain constantly that the wireless carriers "already built the networks and now they're just raking in profits". But if you want to talk about wired, although Verizon sold a big chunk of their wireline etwork in 2015, they also spent $5 billion upgrading wireline infrastructure the same year.

    http://www.verizon.com/about/s...

  8. Re:Practical Usage? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    Well that's actually mostly what they are doing.
    LTE is plenty fast enough today and will likely be for quite some time however in areas with high density they currently have to use more smaller cells to give everyone decent speeds lets guess 1Gbps to a tower that would allow (ignoring overhead) 100 people on tower to all use 10Mbps simultaneously.

    Considering some towers do about half of that now with carrier aggregation I'd think the new ones would do significantly better.
    So assuming they manage to bump it up to 10Gbps that would get them up to 1000 people at 10Mbps or 100 at 100Mbps

    That should greatly improve reliability in my opinion.
    Also this isn't really supposed to be rolling out until 2020 or so if they pickup anything before then it will be 4G all over again with BSing the standard with marketing terms but not providing nearly what was promised.

    As for availability verizon and at&t are available most everywhere now and t-moblie for instance is supposed to be getting way better this year alone. http://bgr.com/2017/02/15/t-mo...

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  9. Re:Practical Usage? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    My 56k modem is plenty fast enough today and I don't see why anyone would need this newfangled broadband stuff.

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  10. Re:Practical Usage? by bobbied · · Score: 1

    Necessity isn't the mother of invention these days... it's marketing!

    You are almost right. Actually... Marketing creates Necessity which then gives birth to invention...Those who fail at any step in this process, go out of business.

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  11. Re:Practical Usage? by bobbied · · Score: 1

    You get 56K???? I can only manage 53K myself, on a good day with a tail wind...

    Ah, those where the days... Screeching modem negotiation tones followed by "You got Mail!" (And a smile from Meg.... That would be a good movie idea..)

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  12. Re:Practical Usage? by CWCheese · · Score: 1

    so you're sayin' : size matters

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  13. Markets? by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Once we lived in cities. Now the place are called markets.

  14. Re:Practical Usage? by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Actually, that's the question I have. What exactly is 5G? Is it the convergence of WiFi and cellular into one standard?