Verizon announced on Wednesday, Feb. 22, that by the middle of this year it will launch pre-commercial 5G service in 11 U.S. cities. The company is evolving its pre-standard 5G wireless lab tests with multi-gigabit speeds into trial services that can be enjoyed by users in the real world.
Verizon 5G Trials
According to CIO, Verizon 5G trials are planned for select users in cities including Seattle, Miami, Denver and Atlanta. 5G market trials will extend across the country in both suburban and dense urban areas. Instead of mobile networks for roving devices, the trials will use fixed wireless equipment for home broadband.
The foundation of the future connectivity consists 5G technology and are being developed now. The 5G infrastructure is expected to soon become the center of our digital world. Carriers need to use of millimeter-wave frequencies for future high-speed mobile broadband. According to RCR Wireless News, single-millisecond latency and multiple gigabits per second speeds will bring the benefits of fiber to wireless. 5G will also have the ability to accommodate the expansion of the Internet of Things.
The Verizon pre-commercial service will use a frequency spectrum around 28 GHz. This is one of the millimeter-wave bands considered for use with 5G by many companies. These frequencies need a new generation of radios and antennas, as they are much higher than the ones in use for mobile service today.
In developing the emerging 5G infrastructure, Verizon collaborates with the world's leading technology companies. Several companies that are part of the 5G Technology Forum and Verizon are performing together 5G field tests. Verizon is driving 5G innovation, being committed as the network leader.
Verizon 5G Technology Forum
Verizon's 5G Technology Forum partners are companies from all the niches of the technology and telecommunications industry, including Intel, Cisco, Apple, Nokia, Ericsson, LG, Qualcomm and Samsung. Companies such as Nokia, Intel, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics America have collaborated with Verizon in their efforts to align their technologies in order to achieve significant advancements on field networks.
A group of leading east and west coast venture capital groups are also part of the Verizon's 5G Technology Forum. The collective 5G Technology Forum is collaborating to establish 5G new technical standards. The characteristics of 5G technology are tested in real-world environments.
A wide range of deployment scenarios is covered by field testing with 5G technology partners. Mobile 5G systems and fixed wireless infrastructure were connected to the Verizon network backbone. Testing was performed both in commercial and residential environments. Signals were transferred between indoor and outdoor environments.
By using millimeter wave bands, these tests mimic real world scenarios. The bands' propagation characteristics were studied across multiple mobile and fixed deployments, at a throughput in the range of multiple gigabits per second. An excellent video quality has been achieved across varied distances, with a latency measured in the millisecond range.
By using various deployment conditions, antenna innovation with millimeter and centimeter wave spectrum is being assessed across all sites. In addition, are also being tested beam tracking, beamforming, wideband spectrum (200 MHz - 1 GHz swaths) and massive multiple input, multiple output (MIMO). Antenna form factors including size with mmWave antennas and deployment flexibility are being assessed as well.
