Verizon starts '5G' field tests in 2016

Edward C. Baig | USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Your wireless network may not be long in the tooth just yet. But a half-dozen years after it introduced "4G" LTE wireless networking technology to the U,S. market, Verizon Wireless on Tuesday announced the roadmap for its fifth generation or "5G" networks, which promise blazing fast speeds.

While 5G isn’t expected to become commercially viable in the U.S. until 2020, Verizon announced that it will begin field trials as soon as next year.

Verizon has been working with Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung to help make it happen and has been establishing 5G network environments, or “sandboxes,” at its Waltham, Mass., and San Francisco Innovation Centers.

According to Verizon 5G will deliver up to about 50 times the throughput of current 4G LTE, with latency down to the single milliseconds. That’s faster than Google Fiber and will theoretically let you to download a full-length Hollywood blockbuster in seconds, and help fuel the exponential explosion of all kinds of connected "Internet of Everything” devices.

“5G is no longer a dream of the distant future,” Roger Gurnani, Verizon's executive vice president and chief information and technology architect, said in a statement. “We feel a tremendous sense of urgency to push forward on 5G and mobilize the ecosystem by collaborating with industry leaders and developers to usher in a new generation of innovation.”

Adds Marcus Weldon, chief technology officer of Alcatel-Lucent and president of Bell Labs: “When you’re planning a technological evolution at this scale it must be a collaboration of players in the ecosystem. Having Verizon initiate this effort now, even as 4G LTE technology has so much headroom left, will no doubt add to the rich fabric of our digital lives for many years to come.”

Verizon is not the only enterprise pushing hard toward a 5G future. As CNET reported, South Korea would love to deploy a 5G wireless network in time for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018, with Japan hoping its own higher speed network will be in place two years later when when the Summer Games are held in Tokyo.

In a statement, Ericsson chief strategy officer Rima Qureshi said: “The Verizon-led effort keeps the communications industry in the U.S. vibrant and globally competitive. A lot of development and requirements for 5G networks have so far come from Asian operators. It’s exciting to see a U.S. company accelerate the rate of innovation and introduce new partners.”

Verizon says that currently more than 98% of the U.S. population has access to 4G LTE and 87% of Verizon Wireless data traffic is carried over the network.

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