[ad_1]
Verizon Wireless activated its first 5G cell sites on April 3, 2019, a week ahead of schedule. The company says its broadband service is available in Chicago, in areas near the Loop and near downtown, including the Magnificent Mile and the Gold Coast. In Minneapolis, service takes place in the US Bank Stadium (just in time for the NCAA Finals) and in other downtown areas, including the Convention Center and the Target Center.
At present, Verizon only has one smartphone that will run on the 5G network, namely a Moto Z3 with a $ 200.00 adapter. 5G service costs $ 10 per month to customers. Verizon announces that it will offer a Samsung Galaxy S10 5G in mid-May, although the price of this phone has not been released.
Several analysts have reported that the activation date of 5G has been postponed mainly so that the company can launch itself earlier than the operators in South Korea, thus giving Verizon the right to boast of having the first 5G network. in the world. The company has already launched a few 5G sites for fixed broadband services. AT & T has a 5G wireless access point, but no real 5G phone. AT & T has raised criticism regarding the "5GE" labeling of its 4G LTE service when it is actually slower than Verizon's LTE and T-Mobile.
Speeds of almost 1 GB / second
Testing for the new 5G service has revealed speeds close to 1 gigabit per second, which is what Verizon claims to be its top speed for initial network deployment. The company reportedly stated that its latency target was less than 10 milliseconds, but so far no latency measure has been made public.
One of the reasons the initial launch of Verizon 5G is limited is the lack of available millimeter wave spectrum that the company can use for its very broadband service. This is a challenge facing other operators of planned 5G deployments and is a major factor that T-Mobile uses in its offer to acquire Sprint. In this case, Sprint has most of the spectrum needed, while T-Mobile has the resources to develop it.
Another reason for limited service is the laws of physics. The millimeter wave frequencies that operators, including Verizon, almost use encroach on the lower end of infrared light. As a result, the signals propagate more like light than radio. This means that the penetration of buildings becomes problematic and that some things such as window glass and foliage become barriers. This means that many more cells are needed for reliable communications.
You are now aware of the problems faced by mobile operators trying to find sites for cell towers due to NIMBY issues. Increasing the number of cell sites by an order of magnitude increases these problems as much. The FCC has tried to limit the ability of communities to restrict cell site permissions, but much reluctance and opposition from the community has been expressed against the fact that Mill Valley, California, even with its history of progressive thinking enclave – has banned the deployment of 5G there.
While Verizon has announced plans to deploy 5G networks in some 30 cities by 2019, the accuracy of building these cities is unclear. Initial deployments may take place in urban areas and places such as large stadiums where bandwidth demand is high. However, coverage in rural areas and even the suburbs will probably take much longer because of the limitations of millimeter-wave communications.
Automatically returns to 4G LTE outside the 5G range
For now, Verizon has stated that its customers using 5G networks will automatically use 4G LTE when they go too far away from a 5G site. This means that, for the moment, 5G will be more of a complement to standard 4G LTE communications. Customers with a 5G handset will sometimes receive 5G, but normally the extra cost of a faster handset adds nothing.
The other carriers have similar plans, which are necessary until the 5G is really a national service, which will take a few years. To a certain extent, the problem of the need to create a large number of small cell sites can be reduced by switching to a lower frequency. T-Mobile will do this with its 600 MHz and 700 MHz 5G services that it plans to launch later in 2019. These lower frequencies allow signals to travel much further and avoid some building penetration problems, but that is at the expense of speed that needs the bandwidth available only at higher frequencies.
At some point, 5G operators will start using the frequencies currently used for LTE 4G, but they will also have the challenge of running their LTE services until customers can reasonably stop using LTE 4G. coverage, and most of these older LTE devices have been replaced. This is similar to the current efforts to end the 2G and 3G communications that are underway but not completed.
But for now, Verizon has really done it. The standards-based 5G is operational, it works well if you have the right phone and it's fast. We should start seeing other major operators start launching their own 5G services by the end of 2019.
[ad_2]
Source link