Verizon extends Nationwide 5G to cover 230 million people

What you need to know:

• 24 million customers throughout Central Texas, Tulsa, OK, Upstate New York, and the New England area now have access to Verizon’s 5G Nationwide service for no added cost, bringing the total customers with access to the most advanced nationwide service to more than 230 million in over 2,700 cities.
• Customers in parts of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Albuquerque and Durham now have access to the unprecedented performance of 5G Ultra Wideband, available in 61 cities, 48 stadiums and arenas and seven airports.

NEW YORK -  Today an additional 24 million customers have access to Verizon’s technologically advanced 5G nationwide network for no added cost.* Verizon announced continued expansion of its 5G Nationwide service to millions more customers throughout Central Texas, Tulsa, OK, Upstate New York, and the New England area, bringing the total to 230 million people able to access Verizon’s 5G capabilities and benefits in over 2,700 cities.

Additionally, Verizon has expanded access to its 5G Ultra Wideband network to customers in parts of Tampa, St Petersburg, Albuquerque and Durham, giving them access to the unprecedented speeds and capabilities of the world’s fastest 5G.** Customers in 61 cities can now experience ultra-fast wireless speeds, allowing them to download and stream movies and TV shows in seconds, videoconference and collaborate remotely in near real time, and take advantage of new immersive customer experiences never before available wirelessly. Enterprise customers in these markets now have access to the technology that can dramatically accelerate their digital transformation, revolutionizing how they interact with their customers, track inventory, manage operations and engage with their workforce.

The most advanced 5G Nationwide network

Verizon’s nationwide network is built with the most advanced technologies available in the industry. 

• The underlying network architecture is built on a cloud-native containerized architecture, similar to the IP-based architecture used by the most notable global tech companies, which can allow for unprecedented levels of operational automation, flexibility and adaptability.   
• Verizon’s 5G Nationwide employs Dynamic Spectrum Sharing technology, which allows 5G service to run simultaneously with 4G LTE on multiple spectrum bands. This new technology allows Verizon to dynamically use its full portfolio of current spectrum resources to serve both 4G and 5G customers, maximizing their experience on the Verizon network.  Customers can use Verizon’s network in a variety of ways — from virtual learning to real-time gaming — that requires the ability to allocate spectrum resources in real time.
• And much of the newest expansion of Verizon’s Nationwide 5G network uses virtualization all the way to cell sites at the edge of the network.  Virtualizing the cell sites and functions, like the virtualization work previously completed in the core of the network, decouples software and hardware functionality enabling the network to be built on general purpose hardware. Using Common Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware leads to greater flexibility and agility in the introduction of new products and services. Instead of adding or upgrading single-purpose hardware, the move to a cloud native, container-based virtualized architecture leads to greater flexibility, faster delivery of services, greater scalability, and improved cost efficiency in networks. This virtualization will also lower the barrier to entry for new vendors in the ecosystem. New entrants can accelerate innovation, reduce operating costs, and lay the groundwork for flexible network and cloud infrastructure closer to the customer, eventually leading to single digit latency. Key 5G use cases focused on providing the best, most efficient network for customers, will heavily rely on the programmability of virtualized networks.

The world’s fastest 5G network

Using advanced technology called Carrier Aggregation, Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network is reaching 4 Gbps peak speeds in some locations.  This technology combines multiple channels of spectrum to provide greater efficiency for data sessions transmitting over the wireless network. Verizon combined eight separate channels of mmWave spectrum to achieve multi-gigabit speeds in parts of some cities. Using this technology, customers can see double the download speeds they have historically experienced on 5G Ultra Wideband, with peak speeds up to 4 Gbps possible in some locations.  Customers will also see a boost in speeds with two carrier aggregation now available for uploads. Combined with Verizon’s vast quantity of available spectrum in mmWave, carrier aggregation allows customers on 5G Ultra Wideband to achieve unprecedented mobile speeds and brings the massive bandwidth available with mmWave spectrum to life.

Verizon’s award-winning 4G LTE Network

A distinct advantage in the deployment of 5G is having a robust, dense, and high-performing 4G LTE Advanced network. Verizon’s 5G network designs share many commonalities with its award-winning 4G LTE Advanced network. The underlying small cell, fiber and radio wave infrastructure of 4G LTE has created the solid technical foundation needed to build Verizon’s 5G networks right.  And with Verizon’s award-winning 4G LTE performance, Verizon has been able to focus on building targeted mmWave services that bring a transformational experience, develop a technologically advanced 5G Nationwide network and consistently provide reliable, world-class service to customers using its 4G services. 

“The technology found in both our 5G Ultrawideband and our 5G Nationwide networks reflects a massive, mulit-year innovation effort that modernizes our entire network with cutting edge capabilities,” said Kyle Malady, Chief Technology Officer of Verizon. “We believe our customers deserve 5G built right, so as we have with technology innovation and advancements throughout our history, we are committed to providing the most advanced technology with the most capabilities that will support the new 5G ecosystem and developing solutions long into the future.”

Specific 5G coverage can be found here https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/.

* Nationwide 5G service available for no added cost on Verizon’s unlimited plans.  Plan details can be found at www.Verizon.com/plans 

** Global claim from May 2020, based on Opensignal independent analysis of mobile measurements recorded during the period January 31 – April 30, 2020 © 2020 Opensignal Limited