Roger Fingas
Verizon will start field trials of 5G cellular technology sometime in 2016, the carrier announced on Tuesday, paving the way for a network could potentially eclipse 4G LTE and many landline Internet connections.
Assuming peak performance, 5G throughput could hit up to 50 times that of LTE with lag under 10 milliseconds, Verizon said. The company is currently establishing 5G "sandboxes" at centers in Waltham, Mass. and San Francisco.
Verizon further claimed that while 5G is typically expected go live in the U.S. sometime after 2020, the carrier is "accelerating the expected rate of innovation." It did not suggest how much sooner a launch might happen.
In any event, 5G adoption may take some time. There is no ratified standard for the technology and even once one is established, hardware vendors will need to make compatible devices, and carriers like Verizon could take years to build out networks. In 2015 many American carriers are still working on LTE coverage, well after the first networks turned on.
In the meantime LTE still has some room to grow, since many networks and devices aren't anywhere near the peak of the technology. With LTE Advanced, downloads can theoretically be as fast as 1 gigabit per second.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus only support speeds up to 150 megabits per second. That could potentially change on Wednesday with the announcement of new iPhones.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
19 Comments
Is it safe to assume that "5G" will be defined as "actually meeting the ITU's requirements for 4G"?
[quote name="Durandal1707" url="/t/188098/verizon-to-begin-testing-5g-wireless-network-in-2016#post_2772393"]Is it safe to assume that "5G" will be defined as "actually meeting the ITU's requirements for 4G"?[/quote] More likely to be set to some arbitrary standard like "Capable of N Mbps" like they did to 4G, rather than based on actual technology. Hope they're not doing the 5G equivalent of WiMAX.
[quote name="Anome" url="/t/188098/verizon-to-begin-testing-5g-wireless-network-in-2016#post_2772403"] More likely to be set to some arbitrary standard like "Capable of N Mbps" like they did to 4G, rather than based on actual technology.[/quote] I know, that's what I was getting at. 4G was supposed to be 1 Gbps, and our "4G" LTE networks still aren't capable of that (LTE-Advanced is, but is that actually deployed anywhere yet?). It would be hilarious to me if, as soon as they actually end up something that meets the definition of 4G, they start calling it 5G. LTE-Advanced is just about ready to be deployed, which is why this is making me wonder if that's what they're talking about (given the dearth of details in the actual article). [quote]Hope they're not doing the 5G equivalent of WiMAX.[/quote] Me too. They did see the light with LTE, so hopefully they're sticking with the standard from now on, but you never know with Verizon. They do like to lock things down, and using weird proprietary stuff makes it way easier to do that.
[quote name="Durandal1707" url="/t/188098/verizon-to-begin-testing-5g-wireless-network-in-2016#post_2772407"] I know, that's what I was getting at. 4G was supposed to be 1 Gbps, and our "4G" LTE networks still aren't capable of that (LTE-Advanced is, but is that actually deployed anywhere yet?).[/quote] 1 gbps is only the theoretical maximum speed of the standard. It isn't the speed at which all customers have to be given service at at all times.
Until Verizon lowers their prices substantially and offer an unlimited plan they won't get my business even if they're running a 10g network. I'll stick with my 4g T-Mobile network until then.