Rural prospects subscribed to Verizon’s 5G community might see a leap of their speeds later this yr. The telecommunications large revealed plans throughout its quarterly earnings name this week to increase its C-band 5G community — which makes use of a radio spectrum that allows sooner speeds on a large scale — to extra rural and suburban areas by December 2023.
We don’t know particularly which areas the enlargement will cowl. Throughout the earnings name, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg talked about that the corporate’s C-band 5G protection has thus far been deployed to 70 out of the 406 out there markets, principally in city and suburban areas. “It’s 330 markets left, we’ll get the C-band,” stated Vestberg. He didn’t make clear what number of of those markets can be coated by the community enlargement later this yr however confirmed that almost all of the deployments coming will consider suburban and rural areas.
The big selection protection of C-band 5G is essential to develop Verizon’s rural portfolio
C-band spectrum is a vital a part of Verizon’s plans for rural enlargement. It may’t match the intense velocity of millimeter wave spectrum (mmWave), however C-band can work over a far larger vary with fewer cell towers. It additionally doesn’t have as many points penetrating via buildings as mmWave and ought to be noticeably sooner than Verizon’s customary 5G deployments.
Verizon spent $45.4 billion to accumulate C-band spectrum licenses at a Federal Communications Fee public sale again in 2021, successful between 140 and 200MHz of C-band spectrum throughout all 406 US markets — 158 of that are thought-about “principally rural.” Rollout has been incremental as many of the spectrum licensed was already in use and requires clearing earlier than it may be reallocated, although the acquisition primed Verizon to finally serve over 250 million folks with C-band spectrum by “2024 and past” through its 5G service.