Verizon Wireless announced today a pilot program for 5G service. The pilot program will only be available to select customers in 11 city centers, including “Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Bernardsville (NJ), Brockton (MA), Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, Sacramento, Seattle and Washington, D.C.”
The pilot program is the fruit of relationships built within Verizon’s 5G Technology Forum (5GTF). Partners include wireless powerhouses like Ericsson and Samsung. 5G promises to bring some major speed improvements previously unheard of over wireless connections. Woojune Kim, Vice President of Samsung’s Next Generation Business Team, said: “The 5G systems we are deploying will soon provide wireless broadband service to homes, enabling customers to experience cost-competitive, gigabit speeds that were previously only deliverable via fiber.”
This move by Big Red comes after AT&T announced it was bringing 5G to Austin and Indianapolis earlier this month. Intel and Qualcomm are also pushing faster gigabit modems in upcoming chipsets scheduled to debut over the next few years. Verizon is definitely pushing to stay competitive. Adam Koeppe, Vice President of Network Planning at Verizon, said: “Network density is increasing to meet the demands of customers, and following the FCC's aggressive action on 5G spectrum, the time is right to deliver the next generation of broadband services with 5G.”
Don’t expect 5G speeds to come to your phone anytime soon. Although some manufacturers might be developing 5G capable smartphones, the infrastructure within the United States is not compatible. In fact, a formal standardization of 5G doesn’t exist quite yet, and it’ll take some time to construct the necessary hardware to bring gigabit speeds to mobile.