Verizon's answer to T-Mobile's huge 5G expansion is... not very impressive
Both AT&T and T-Mobile had major announcements to make in regards to their 5G network expansion efforts recently, with the former carrier reaching the "nationwide" coverage milestone and the latter operator spreading the love to more than 1,500 new cities and towns to bring that already impressive total up to 7,500+.
Unsurprisingly, Verizon is now trying to make a few waves of its own and divert some media attention away from its competition, although the nation's top wireless service provider is unlikely to spend much time in the limelight with its latest breakthroughs.
That's because these are not particularly remarkable compared to T-Mobile's long list of incredible achievements from the last few months, expanding the blazing fast 5G Ultra Wideband signal to only one new place and delivering 5G mobile edge computing to customers in Boston and the Bay Area.
San Jose joins a list of 5G UW-supporting cities that previously included just 35 names, bringing Verizon only a teeny-tiny step closer to achieving its objective of covering 60 cities with the nation's fastest wireless network by the end of the year. As you may already be aware, with great speeds come great availability limitations due to the inherent flaws of the mmWave technology.
Otherwise put, San Jose residents should expect to see spotty coverage all around their city and especially in buildings. The places where you might be able to more often connect to Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband network include Downtown San Jose, Little Saigon, Little Italy, West San Jose, the technology corridor in North San Jose, and around South San Jose landmarks such as Japanese Friendship Garden, Guadalupe River Park, Arena Green East, as well as outside of the CEFCU Stadium & Excite Ballpark.
The 5G mobile edge computing (MEC) breakthrough, meanwhile, is not targeted at everyday Verizon customers to begin with, instead allowing developers and enterprises to "harness the power of innovation" and "build entirely new categories of applications for the edge."
Although this highlights Big Red's commitment to crucially contribute to the advancement of exciting industries and technologies like connected cars, smart cities and smart factories, and the Internet of Things, we're pretty sure the carrier's subscribers would appreciate more to hear about Verizon's short-term plans of fending off T-Mobile and AT&T in the commercial 5G space.
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