Although there isn’t a universal 5G standard yet presently, telecommunications major Verizon has announced that it will be rolling out pre-commercial 5G services to select customers in 11 cities throughout the US by mid-2017 on its newly built 5G network. The company will begin offering 5G to pilot customers during the first half of 2017 in Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Bernardsville (NJ), Brockton (MA), Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, Sacramento, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
This implementation of 5G technology leverages the close collaboration with Verizon’s 5G Technology Forum (5GTF) partners. 5GTF partners including Ericsson, Intel Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Samsung are doing their bit to commercialise chipsets, infrastructure products and consumer devices based on the 5GTF specification, and chipsets built for enabling the technology are being made available by the 5GTF partners. Collaborative activities with international telecommunications giants in Japan, Korea, and Canada are helping further accelerate the commercialisation of 5G.
“Ericsson’s partnership with Verizon in rolling out 5G customer trials is accelerating the global 5G ecosystem,” said Rima Qureshi, Head of Region North America, Ericsson. “These end-to-end solutions are a key step for preparing Verizon’s network for commercial deployment with different 5G scenarios and use cases.”
“The tremendous progress we have made with Verizon in commercialising 5G represents our companies’ mutual focus on delivering the highest level of innovation to our customers,” said Woojune Kim, Vice President, Next Generation Business Team, Samsung Electronics. “The 5G systems we are deploying will soon provide wireless broadband service to homes, enabling customers to experience cost-competitive, gigabit speeds that were previously only deliverable via fiber.”
