BARCELONA—When Verizon launches its mobile 5G network later this spring, it's going to have a twist that other carriers may not be able to match: home internet service.
"It is one network, based on 5G, supporting multiple use cases," Verizon's VP of technology planning, Adam Koeppe said. "Enterprise, small/medium business, consumer, mobility, fixed. When the 5G network is built, you have a fixed and mobile play that's basically native to the deployment you're doing."
That's a commitment that the other carriers building 5G haven't been able to make as of yet. T-Mobile has promised home broadband but only if it's allowed to merge with Sprint, which is still in question. While Sprint plans to launch 5G in nine cities by June and has a home-appropriate HTC 5G Hub, the company refused to say it would have service plans appropriate for the massive data usage that American homes incur. AT&T's most recent description of its retail 5G hotspot service plan tops out at a pathetic 15GB per month.
"You need a lot of bandwidth to support [home use], and that's exactly what we have with our millimeter-wave holdings," Koeppe said. He isn't concerned about high-volume home users clogging up the network for mobile users, either. "We engineer the network to give the customer what they need when they need it, and the results speak for themselves."
Currently, Verizon sells home internet based on its early 5GTF system for $50 per month with a Verizon Wireless line, or $70 per month without one, for unlimited use. It estimates about 300Mbps speed being delivered to homes over that network. Koeppe didn't say anything about specific pricing or service plans for the NR network.
The carrier stopped building out 5GTF equipment and is now focused on the global 5G NR standard.
Verizon's rollout initially won't solve the rural digital divide, but it will offer a new option for urban consumers frustrated by a lack of alternatives to cable internet. Millimeter wave is a high-bandwidth, but relatively short-range technology that works well with the existing small-cell setups in crowded cities, but would require additional build-outs in less dense areas. Earlier this week, Nokia showed us Verizon-compatible millimeter-wave cells that suburbanites might not even notice, but the carriers would still have to put them up.
"Our deployments of millimeter wave are focused on urban centers. It's where the people are, where the consumption is," Koeppe said.
I tried to get more details about the buildout from Koeppe, but he didn't take the bait. He did say that unlike with the current TF network, where Verizon doesn't provide coverage maps, the carrier absolutely will offer coverage maps when it puts up NR.
"As you move forward through NR deployment, I would absolutely expect that we would be putting out clear information on where that service is available, because that's what we've done with every technology. As we launch our markets later this year you'll see tons of information," Koeppe said.