Today, Verizon announced that it has completed a multi-year transformation of its network to improve its service. Now, with this upgrade, Verizon can now offer 5G Home Internet to 40 million American households. Verizon has also expanded its 5G service to reach an additional 230 million people.
“It’s been a tremendously dynamic and exciting few years for our network, introducing 5G to the market, redesigning the network core functions, accelerating our fiber build and introducing a host of advanced technologies to improve our customers’ experience with us,” said Joe Russo, EVP and CEO of Global Network and Technology. “These changes mean more people can do more things in more places more reliably, and that’s what we’re all about as a company.”
Part of this effort to improve its service is to bring more fiber to its towers, improve coverage at sports venues, and more.
- Introducing 5G service to more than 230 million people, accelerating C-band spectrum deployment and strategically using premium mmWave spectrum to serve customers in high 5G usage areas.
- Expanding 5G Fixed Wireless Access Internet availability to cover more than 40 million households.
- Accelerating the fiber build plan, deploying nearly 57k fiber miles since 2020 and now connecting over 51% of its cell sites with its own fiber.
- Upgrading 76% of pro sports venues with 5G Ultra Wideband service to provide greater coverage and exponentially more capacity in major gathering and event spaces to better support high data traffic.
- Redesigning the core of the network to function in a cloud-native environment and introducing advanced technologies such as virtualization, automation and orchestration throughout the network. Introducing virtualization (throughout the core and in over 15,000 cell sites), re-architecting to a Kubernetes-based cloud-native platform, and integrating extensive automation and orchestration have been largely invisible to customers, but those changes are making a world of difference. Not only is Verizon able to make changes that benefit customers faster (like introducing new security measures, improving handoffs between cell sites, improving latency, and reducing call drops) but it can now implement those enhancements without taking the network offline, so customers are getting the benefits with zero down time.
Verizon’s 5G Home starts at $35, offers a Wi-Fi 6 router, and comes with a 2-year price guarantee.
Verizon’s 5G Home Plus starts at $45 and offers a Wi-Fi 6 router, and comes with a 3-year price guarantee along with Verizon’s unlimited cloud backup. Plus, you can get 12 months of Walmart+ for free.
There is no equipment fee, and depending on if you pick the 5G Home or 5G Home Plus plans, your price is guaranteed for 2 to 3 years.