Verizon is getting hyped to launch 5G for the 6th or 7th time in recent years, only this time it might bring you an upgraded experience. Examples from the previous launches include a non-standard home 5G experience, mmWave in a couple of neighborhoods that you’ll never find, and a nationwide “5G” that likely brought you a logo change from 4G without a change in speed. Verizon’s 5G rollout dates back to 2018 and there’s a good chance you still don’t have any of the 5G promise given back then.
But hey, this month could be the month. Verizon is planning to fire up its C-Band spectrum and deliver a reasonable increase in speeds both on the download and upload sides of things. Assuming the FAA gives them a greenlight in a couple of weeks, Verizon expects to give 100 million people in 1,700 cities access to their shiny new network with speeds “10x faster than 4G LTE.”
What does “10x faster than 4G LTE” mean? It means typical download speeds between 90-170Mbps and upload speeds of 15-30Mbps. You could see peaks on those that hit 1Gbps or 100Mbps, but those are just peaks.
Verizon noted the specifics on speeds in an announcement post earlier this week, which I’d like to give them props for. We tried to find T-Mobile and AT&T’s official listing of typical speeds for their 5G and they are basically afraid to list it outside of whatever Ookla or OpenSignal have reported back to them in press release form. If you find it, please let us know.
So, if you own a Verizon phone that can access their 5G Ultra Wideband (5GUW) network in the coming weeks, your expectation should not be 1Gbps download speeds at all times. Instead, you should expect something around 100Mbps. That’s not bad, especially when you consider they rate their LTE network at between 5-12Mbps.