Verizon’s rolling out its 5G network, and two more cities, Denver and Providence, now join its 5G family, the top-ranked US carrier said today in its press release.
Called 5G Ultra Wideband Network, Verizon turned on its 5G service for “select” Denver, Colorado customers, with Providence, Rhode Island customers getting access to the new Ultra Wideband Network on July 1, 2019.
Denver customers can expect to see Verizon’s 5G network in select areas such as south of 37th between Tejon and Navajo Streets, LoDo around Coors Field, and at the Denver Center for The Performing Arts, Sculpture Park, outside Paramount Theatre in the Central Business District, as well as areas of Capitol Hill and sections of The Denver Tech Center.
In Providence, Rhode Island, the early recipients of 5G Ultra Wideband will be Rhode Island School of Design, Providence College, Brown University (Erickson Athletic Complex, Wriston Quadrangle), Federal Hill, Mt. Hope, and parts of College Hill.
Big Red says that customers on its newest network should expect download speeds up to 450Mbps, peak speeds above 1.5Gbps, and latency less than 30 milliseconds. When moving away from Verizon’s 5G network, customers will find themselves on Verizon’s 4G LTE network, the most reliable network to date.
Denver and Providence are part of Verizon’s continued effort to bring 5G to as many citizens nationwide as it can. It was the first carrier in the US to roll out its 3G network, then second in rolling out its 4G LTE behind T-Mobile’s MetroPCS. It is the first US carrier to unveil its 5G network.
Back in 2016, Big Red said it had started field trials for 5G thanks to their 5G Technology Forum consisting of big industry names such as Samsung, Apple, LG, Intel, and Qualcomm. Its first tests showed the network providing a download speed of 1Gbps on low-band 28GHz and 64GHz spectrum.
In August 2018, the nation’s top carrier and Nokia teamed up to complete the first 5G call from a moving vehicle. The experiment was completed using Verizon’s 28GHz spectrum and two 5G NR radio stations installed on a Nokia building. A conventional receiver antenna on a moving car transmitted voice while the car traveled the route between the two radio stations. The 3GPP, 5G NR-compliant call was completed without any interruptions.
In 2018, Verizon started rolling out its experimental 5G network to cities such as Sacramento (California), Los Angeles (California), and Houston (Texas). In that same year, Big Red partnered with Korean juggernaut Samsung to bring 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) to some places in the US alongside its wireless service in Sacramento later that year.
Samsung received a contract with Verizon whereby the carrier would use its equipment to deploy its upcoming network. One month after Samsung secured its Verizon contract, the Android giant unveiled its first tablet prototype to demonstrate the network’s performance.
In October 2018, Verizon announced its commercial 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network beginning with its product known as “5G Home,” as well as its 5G commercial network.
At CES 2019 earlier this year, Verizon confirmed that its Moto Z3 would be the carrier’s first 5G phone with the use of Motorola’s 5G Moto Mod. Verizon’s second 5G phone is the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G.
Verizon has taken some shots at AT&T. The two carriers are the best of the best in the US, and they compete on practically everything for the sake of winning customers from one another. Both said that they’d roll out their 5G networks the fastest, and AT&T’s so-called “5G Evolution” campaign that was really little more than a “4G Plus” network was called out by Verizon.
Though Verizon’s 5G network speeds may prove faster in the future, AT&T’s improvements to its 4G network have given it the win for PCMag’s 2019 fastest mobile network contest.
Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network consists of its massive spectrum holdings of millimeter wave bands, end-to-end deep fiber resources through its FiOS broadband internet service, and its large number of small cells.