T-Mobile and Verizon battle over 5G

At the end of last month, Verizon said that it would start bringing 5G into the home with its residential 5G broadband coming to five markets in the second half of next year. Big Red will be using millimeter-wave technology, which has a number of issues. The signals require a clear line-of-sight, and do not penetrate buildings that well. Verizon VP of network support Mike Haberman says that Verizon is using beam-forming technology to workaround those limitations, and the carrier was able to achieve a gigabit link even at distance of 2,000 feet.

T-Mobile, on the other hand, has been focusing on nationwide 5G over mobile networks, a goal that most likely won't be offered to the public until 2019-2020. T-Mobile CEO John Legere, not one to shy away from tossing in his two cents, tweeted last week that Verizon continues to "over-promise and under-deliver." Pointing to past announcements made by the nation's largest carrier, the executive wrote "First 5G was gonna be available in 2016, now it’s almost 2018 & NOTHING!" (capitals are used in the source material).

In an interview published this past week, T-Mobile's Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray called out Verizon's plan to deploy 5G next year "unrealistic," and pointed out the "technical hurdles" that are inherent with millimeter-wave spectrum will be the reason why Verizon won't debut 5G service next year. Verizon's Haberman got in his own shot when he said that it is hard for carriers not using millimeter-wave spectrum (like T-Mobile) to comment. Verizon's VP of Network Support added that millimeter-wave spectrum technology is "rapidly improving."

T-Mobile and Verizon are both trying to get to the finish line first and reap the huge publicity that comes with being the first to offer 5G. But since we are talking about two different deployments of 5G, this battle is most likely just warming up.


source: @JohnLegere, CNET via BGR