Verizon's 5G network will be on $600 phones soon, and may kill Wi-Fi for good
Oh, CES expo times, riddled with smart sex toys, Trump family keynotes and outlandish statements from carrier officials. Landing squarely in that last category is Verizon's EVP and Consumer Group CEO Ronan Dunne, who used an investor conference to declare the end of Wi-fi.
That's right, your humble router and repeater sequence may soon be replaced by... indoor 5G. Needless to say, of Verizon's mmWave type that can be leveraged to provide what your cable company now does.
Given that the breathtaking speeds that the 5G standard specs boast are only achievable with millimeter wave networks that need small cells every 1000 feet or so, and can't really penetrate your palm, let alone buildings, the Wi-fi killers have to be densely distributed indoors, too.
I’m not suggesting that Wi-Fi hotspots will disappear immediately... [but] we don’t see the need for Wi-Fi in the future because we have a more secure network environment.
We have much higher performance criteria and we have the ability to hand off sessions, et cetera et cetera, so our view is that when fully deployed, there are substantial environments in which public Wi-Fi will be eliminated in favor of millimeter wave because of the security, reliability and service capabilities.
Cheap Verizon 5G phones for all in 2020
Future carrier wet dreams aside, Verizon's Consumer Group CEO also said something that perked our ears more than the eventual demise of Wi-Fi for the sake of its 5G network. He mentioned that mmWave devices - read, phones that are able to access its hyperfast 5G connection areas - will go down to $800 in the spring, and most likely to $600 by the end of the year.
That could be expected given that Qualcomm already issued a midrange chipset with every 5G band under the sun integrated in the modem, but it's another thing to hear a phone price peg from a carrier official.
Given that last year's 5G phones that could take full advantage of its network started off at a grand, getting down to $600 will be a boon for mass adoption of 5G handsets. Verizon will be issuing no less than 20 5G-capable phones this year, added Mr Dunne, one for every taste and wallet.
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