Verizon will test 5G service in 11 cities by mid-2017 as a replacement for home or office broadband
The company plans to offer 5G to some customers in 11 cities by midyear. It's not full mobile wireless. Instead it's a replacement for fixed broadband. — We're slowly inching toward a super-connected 5G world.
Context & Ripple Effects
This trial is the next step in a plan Verizon laid out back in 2015, when it said it would start testing a network 30-50 times faster than 4G with limited commercial service tentatively slated for 2017. The key framing here is that the first product isn't phones — it's a substitute for the wire going into homes and offices.
First-order effects
- Customers in the 11 trial cities get a wireless alternative to their cable or DSL broadband by mid-2017, with Verizon learning deployment economics before committing to scale.
Second-order effects
- If the trials convert, cable incumbents face a competitor that can add broadband without digging or stringing wire — which is why Verizon was reportedly lining up a TV partner in Google or Apple to bundle content onto the new pipe.
Third-order effects
- The pattern did hold: the trials matured into a commercial launch in four cities at $50/month, and Verizon's later move to offer 4G LTE-based home internet across 48 states only where other broadband is absent shows fixed wireless being positioned both as an upgrade path and as a filler for gaps in its wireline footprint.
The trend: Carriers are turning cellular networks into home-broadband substitutes, starting with fixed-wireless trials and layering video partnerships on top to compete with cable bundles.