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.
“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.”
802.11ac/WiFi 5 has a single-stream max speed of 1.3Gbps. 802.11ax/WiFi 6 has a single-stream max speed of 3.5Gbps. If you’ve got a 4×4 MIMO device, your theoretical max speed is 14Gbps, or 3.9Gbps for WiFi 5.
If 5G really delivers 20Gbps, it’ll be faster than “fast WiFi”. Even at 10Gbps (the number I’ve seen as its theoretical max), it’s still more than twice as fast as most people’s WiFi.
Dish holds a large amount of 5G spectrum and is building out their IoT and standalone 5G network. They will need upwards of 10 billion to complete the latter. This is an acquisition I can see Apple making. Giving them their own Iot network for 5G connected devices in households and businesses and a 5G network for video and internet, which is secure and private and not be beholden to any carrier for its customers. hmmmm.
It would be a threat to cable if there weren’t data caps. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy streaming video a few days over 5G only to suffer a few weeks throttled. Until wireless carriers start measuring their caps in TB, they won’t displace ground fiber to your home.
In a few markets, Verizon now offers fixed 5G (300Gbs) with no data cap. This is not mobile service, but an alternative to cable, DSL, or fiber for the home. I wouldn’t be surprised to see data caps in the future, but since this is meant to compete with wired home service, if and when they do, I expect it’d be around 1TB/month.
Interesting, and they’re advertising “up to” speeds equal to their top fios service. That said, Verizon FiOS and Verizon Wireless are two arms of the same company. Whether the connection to the house is fiber or wireless, both still connect to Verizon’s fiber backbone. Won’t be that easy for others.