What
is 5G?

5G is the fifth generation of wireless technology.

But users will know it as one of the fastest, most robust technologies the world has ever seen.

That means quicker downloads, much lower lag and a significant impact on how we live, work and play. The connectivity benefits of 5G are expected to make businesses more efficient and give consumers access to more information faster than ever before. Connected cars, smart communities, industrial IoT, immersive education—they all will rely on 5G networks.

“In the future, everything is going to be transformed by 5G,” says Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg. “The pace of technological change in decades past has been fast. The only thing we know for sure is that, in the future, it's going to be even faster. We're going to experience a technological shift that will transform people, businesses and society as a whole.”

Understanding 5G technology

Verizon is working tirelessly to roll out 5G on a massive scale. But what exactly is 5G? How does it work? How fast is it, really? And how will it change people’s lives? We answer those questions, and more, below.

To understand 5G, it’s helpful to understand what came before it. Broadly, the first generation of mobile technology, 1G, was about voice. The ability to use a phone in a car, or anywhere else, really took root here. The advent of 2G introduced a short-messaging layer—pieces of which can still be seen in today’s texting features. The move to 3G provided the essential network speeds for smartphones. And 4G, with its blazing data-transfer rates, gave rise to many of the connected devices and services that we rely on and enjoy today.

What are the benefits of 5G?

A discussion around 5G technology is really a discussion about delivering life-changing technologies through next-generation networks. And Verizon has the engineering experience and partnerships to move huge amounts of data at significantly faster speeds than before.

This is all predicated on work we began years ago to “densify” our 4G LTE network with small cell sites in high traffic areas—places like shopping centers and college campuses, as well as downtown areas.

Thanks to these improvements, as well as using  millimeter wave spectrum and deploying a massive fiber network, we've been able to introduce Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband—a technology that we expect will revolutionize industries and provide immediate impact for customers—faster and more efficiently.

In a 5G-powered tomorrow, entire supply chains can be fundamentally reshaped. With its gigabit speeds and unprecedented response times, 5G Ultra Wideband can be thought of as the “secret sauce” that can make connected cars, cloud-connected traffic control and other applications that depend on essentially instantaneous response and data analysis live up to their potential. From healthcare to emergency response to smart energy solutions to next-level gaming, the possibilities are virtually limitless.