Verizon continues the slow expansion of its blazing fast 5G UW and 5G Home networks
Verizon may have toned down its bombastic 5G Ultra Wideband advertising (a little) after finally rolling out a "nationwide" low-band 5G signal last fall, but the blazing fast mmWave-based network continues to expand to (small parts of) new places, and with it, Big Red keeps spreading the 5G Home love as well.
Curiously enough, the largest wireless service provider in the US chose to announce its latest 5G expansions pretty much at the same time as Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Z Flip 3 5G, Watch 4, Watch 4 Classic, and Buds 2.
Although the two announcements are obviously not connected in any way, we can't help but suspect Verizon may have intentionally avoided the spotlight knowing full well its availability numbers, especially as far as 5G UW service is concerned, are still light years behind the competition.
While it's not entirely fair to compare the 78 cities covered (in part) by the state-of-the-art 5G Ultra Wideband network with the 165 million people (!!!) that can already take advantage (at least in theory) of T-Mobile's slower mid-band 5G technology, the former count is by any measure... bad.
Said tally is naturally made worse by the fact that Big Red has yet to deploy a mid-band 5G signal of its own, not to mention that the speed difference between Magenta's "Ultra Capacity" and Verizon's Ultra Wideband networks is not exactly humongous.
Still, if you're lucky, you can use the fastest mobile 5G available in the US in Austin, TX, Gresham, OR, and Birmingham, AL now on a compatible Verizon phone, and that's certainly... something.
Austin and Gresham are also among the new markets getting 5G Home broadband access, alongside Albuquerque, NM, Little Rock, AR, and Nashville, TN, which brings that particular tally up to 52 cities.
That's actually not as bad as it sounds for a service promising max download speeds of up to 1 Gbps, "typical" download speeds of around 300 Mbps, as well as no data caps and no throttling, all for the relatively low monthly price of $50 and up. Then again, T-Mobile is rapidly gaining ground on that front too.
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