Verizon customers are getting better 5G coverage and speeds; the carrier explains why

After some Verizon customers recently noticed improved 5G speeds and coverage, the company made it official today by announcing that it now has access to all of the C-Band spectrum that it won at auction nearly two and a half years ago. Verizon spent $52.9 billion including clearing costs and incentive payments in that auction which put up for bids spectrum in the 3.7GHz-3.98GHz range.

The goal was to give the nation's largest wireless carrier plenty of mid-band spectrum. Due to the characteristics of airwaves in this range, the signals travel farther than mmWave but also deliver faster download speeds than low-band. This is why mid-band is called the Goldilocks of wireless connectivity.

The carrier has been given access to the rest of its C-band spectrum four months ahead of schedule which is a big deal according to Verizon's Joe Russo, Executive VP & President of Global Networks and Technology. "Early access to the remainder of the C-band spectrum puts us another four months ahead of schedule from our original projections," Russo said.

He added, "This additional spectrum will make 5G Ultra Wideband available to even more Americans, and will open up more availability of our home and business broadband solutions. The more spectrum we deploy on our network, the more capacity we add for our customers to connect."

In the 2021 auction, Verizon won C-Band licenses amounting to 140Mhz-200Mhz of airwaves in all markets. Last year it started using 60MHz in 46 markets. As the satellite companies clear more spectrum, Verizon has been able to offer 5G Ultra Wideband service in many more markets with an average 161MHz of spectrum deployed coast-to-coast. Some markets are already able to offer a full 200MHz of bandwidth to Verizon customers.

In other markets, Verizon has been deploying equipment that will hike the bandwidth to 200MHz by initiating a software update. Verizon says, "Customers will start to see the effects of this dramatic increase in bandwidth in the immediate next few days and weeks." Verizon also has access to as much as 200MHz of C-Band spectrum in 158 mostly rural markets covering nearly 40 million people.

Since Verizon started using C-Band spectrum, it has offered the fast mid-band 5G experience to more than 222 million people. Some of these Verizon customers are now seeing download data speeds in the neighborhood of 1Gbps.