Telecom service provider Verizon claims it will offer its 5G Ultra Wideband service nationwide in the first quarter of 2023. With the carrier now covering over 175 million people, the C-band spectrum portfolio that the carrier is heavily relying on to power its next-generation wireless aspirations is 13 months “ahead of the original schedule,” according to Verizon.
The announcement follows Verizon’s completed lab trials where it used 200 megahertz of C-band spectrum to support 5G services earlier this fall.
“As you start to open up more of that bandwidth, 100 megahertz or 200 megahertz, you’re going through the same type of testing process basically to ensure the infrastructure that’s transmitting at that wide range and the device that’s now looking for that full bandwidth, all of those things you want to ensure that they work in unison,” Koeppe said of the lab testing.
Verizon has been aggressively inserting the 3.7 GHz-3.98 GHz band into sites across the country in a move to bolster its 5G network capacity after the carrier spent more than $45 billion on a majority of the C-band licenses that were up for bid during the government auction that ended early last year.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg stated in the release, “We are building this right. We are building this as a platform for innovation for years to come.”
Competitor AT&T has also been investing in its C-Band spectrum assets since the carrier spent $23.4 billion on the 3.7 GHz-4 GHz band during the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction.
AT&T CEO John Stankey raised the carrier’s year-end coverage target from 100 million potential customers to more than 130 million potential customers, or “nearly double our expectations when we entered the year.”
That increase was helped by a lot of initial uncertainty surrounding potential interference issues with the C-Band spectrum. AT&T and Verizon, which spent more than $45 billion on C-Band spectrum, were forced to delay the deployment of that spectrum due to potential interference with some radio altimeters.