Jacob Kastrenakes, The Verge:

Verizon finally offered some details about its 5G launch this morning: it plans to deploy the next-gen wireless technology in 30 cities by the end of 2019. The carrier didn’t say which cities those would be, how thoroughly 5G would be deployed throughout those cities, or when exactly the launch would begin, but Verizon did say that each launch would include some deployment of super fast millimeter wave radios.

We are at the very early stages here. The 5G rollout will take time. There’s a lot of infrastructure to build.

5G is not like existing cell service, served by giant cell towers, each built to serve a large geographic area. 5G cells are the size of a city block. Obviously, that requires many more boxes. Add in the fact that 5G signals have difficulty penetrating thick walls and you can see that 5G will require antennae everywhere there is coverage.

On the other side of the equation, there’s the complete lack of 5G phones. They are coming, with the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G just announced and, I’m sure, other phones in the works.

Side note: 5G has a data transfer rate up to about 20Gbps. That’s not as fast as fast WiFi, but compared to the cellular we have now, that’s blazingly fast. And, perhaps, fast enough to be a threat, and an alternative, to cable.

UPDATE: According to Loop reader jimothyGator, the 5G transfer rate will actually be faster than the fastest WiFi. Check the comments. A real threat to cable.