Verizon launched three more 5G cities today—Columbus, Cleveland, and Hampton Roads—fulfilling its promise to have 30 US cities live with its millimeter-wave 5G service by the end of the year. Hampton Roads includes Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Newport News, so Verizon probably could have claimed even more cities, had it wanted to do so.
Verizon's coverage maps haven't kept up with its rush of recent city launches, with its page of maps standing at 17 cities—16, if you count Minneapolis/St. Paul as one. Our examinations of the maps, and our tests in New York, show that coverage is relatively limited within each city and that the maps may overstate the coverage people can actually see on Verizon's half-dozen retail 5G phones.
On its 5G coverage page, Verizon says that Kansas City and Little Rock are "coming soon."
Promises, Promises
Verizon's fulfilled promise marks the end of 5G's inaugural year, which looked more driven by carriers' desperate need to fulfill marketing-driven promises rather than by providing widespread new consumer capabilities.
The list of disappointing marketing claims started back in 2018, when Verizon and AT&T both proclaimed they had "launched" 5G. But Verizon's version wasn't the international standard, and AT&T refused to give any details of its coverage areas.
All throughout 2019, carriers then made advance promises that they technically fulfilled, but disappointingly so. T-Mobile said it would launch 5G during the first half; it did so in parts of six cities, using one phone that it has sold relatively few units of, on a technology that's currently incompatible with its later launches; and the company hasn't expanded that tech's coverage. Sprint proclaimed nine cities, and then got stuck at nine cities. Now Verizon has fulfilled its 30-city pledge, but we estimate it's covering only a few million people, because of the very limited coverage within each city.
None of this is to condemn 5G. I think the technology has huge potential and will enable unforeseen new devices and applications. But the marketing cart has been pulling the network horse, forcing carriers to unveil premature "mission accomplished" banners to fulfill promises and to look like they're keeping up with the foreign Joneses.
Potential for 2020
US carriers have a much harder row to hoe than foreign 5G carriers, because we're short of the most ideal wireless spectrum for 5G. 5G can work on an extremely wide range of frequencies, but the sweet spot appears to be "mid-band," a range from 2.5GHz to 7GHz which is slightly above most 4G systems. While countries in Europe and Asia auctioned mid-band spectrum for 5G, the US has had trouble reclaiming it from the satellite companies and military users who hold it.
One US carrier does have mid-band—Sprint. But it's been so consumed by its merger drama with T-Mobile that its rollout is stalled. That has left the rest of the US carriers stuck with low-band (broad coverage but slow, basically just like 4G, for now) and high-band (fast but really short-range and difficult to build, like Verizon is using.)
The new year will bring many advancements that will make 5G more exciting. The first phones that can handle low-, mid-, and high-band all together will start to appear in February 2020. By March, we hope to see 5G home-internet devices, which have been delayed through all of 2019 as companies wait on better antenna units. Millimeter-wave, high-band coverage will improve throughout the year. If T-Mobile and Sprint merge, their mid-band network will boom by mid-year. The first 5G iPhone will likely come in September, and by the end of the year, the FCC should auction a large swath of mid-band spectrum called the C-Band.
So don't think of 2019's 5G promises as made entirely in vain. They were just made too early.
As always, we will continue to track 5G rollouts on our Race to 5G page. Verizon won't get credit for its new cities until it posts maps, though.