MARCH 2021

What’s the status

of 5G globally?
SPECTRUM, DEPLOYMENTS
AND CUSTOMER TRENDS
By Catherine Sbeglia

REPORT SPONSORS:
 FEATURE REPORT
Introduction: Connectivity is king
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread
across the globe in 2020, we were
forced to shutter businesses and
schools, refrain from seeing friends
and family and take refuge inside
our homes. But once the initial shock
of our new reality subsided, work,
school and socializing had to contin-
ue, meaning the world began to rely
on its networks like never before.
Therefore, while many industries,
like the wedding industry and the
travel industry, took a massive hit
in 2020 and are still in uncertain
waters today, the value of the tele-
communications industry, partic-
ularly as it relates to 5G, has only
become more clear. 5G promises the
higher throughput and lower la-
tency necessary to provide reliable
and consistent enough coverage to
make now necessary applications
like distance learning, telehealth
and remote work truly possible.
As the President of 5G Americas
Chris Pearson put it, the pandemic
helped the world see that “connec-
tivity is king.”
However, Telit’s Vice President
of Technologies Marco Contento
was careful to point out that the
pandemic did lead to an initial
slowdown for some aspects of the
2
telecommunications industry.
“Testing activity suffered a lot in
terms of schedule, in particular for
the end devices,” he said, adding,
“In terms of the standardization,
if you look at the 3GPP, they were
also delayed.”
Similarly, Infovista’s Chief Mar-
keting Officer and Corporate De-
velopment Officer Marc Serra said
that the company saw “a temporary
disruption” following the outbreak
as network traffic patterns suf-
fered significant “movement from
city centers to suburban areas” as
people began to work from home.
“Everyone had to adjust to that,
which was a tremendous amount
of work,” he continued. “They did
it, but that meant that for a few
months, they were postponing
Comparison of 5G and 4G subscriptions uptake in the
first years of deployment (billion)
investments and spectrum alloca-
tions. But it recovered quite fast.
We are working at a normal speed
again. In general, there has not
been a delay on 5G deployments.”
All in all, he said, the pandemic
presented “a momentary hiccup.”
The ‘staggering’ demand for 5G
Despite these setbacks, 5G adop-
tion managed to not only beat the
odds by accelerating during a par-
ticularly challenging year, but it is
doing so faster than any previous
mobile technology, as indicated by
the latest Ericsson Mobility Report.
In fact, from the perspective of
Adam Gould, senior vice presi-
dent of product management at
Inseego Corp., the demand for 5G
is “staggering.”
Image courtesy of Ericsson

“The time from standard comple-
tion to significant volume in any
wireless technology in the past has
typically been about seven years,”
he continued. “It’s pretty long. You
get a ton of buzz early on, but real
volume takes a while.”
In the case of 5G, though, Gould
said the company is already ship-
ping “a lot” of 5G products and that
the emphasis on 5G and its trans-
formative properties is much high-
er than with previous generations
of wireless technology.
“In 5G, it’s not really about
phones. It’s much more about
lots of new innovative use cases
and new product concepts.”
Adam Gould, Senior Vice
President, Product Management,
Inseego Corp.
Mobile subscriptions by technology (billion)
Gould acknowledged the signifi-
cant impact of 2G on people lives,
saying that is gave us voice and
limited SMS connectivity. He also
explained that with 3G, smart-
phones really “became smart,” and
then, with 4G, social media took off
because we could take our social
network with us.
But 5G, Gould argued, is going to
be different.
“In 5G, it’s not really about
phones,” he stated. “It’s much more
about lots of new innovative use
cases and lots of new product con-
cepts. The types of devices that
will be using the network will be
far more than just phones. There
are more than 10 billion IoT devices
sold every year and that will only
FEATURE REPORT
Image courtesy of Ericsson
increase. Further, enterprises sud-
denly want to be able to use wire-
less when before, wired was really
their own viable option.”
As a result, a number of differ-
ent types of services beyond just
phone service will begin to emerge
in a 5G era, having a massive im-
pact on how cellular technology is
used and perceived.
Ericsson’s findings, released in
November 2020, supported this high
demand, anticipating 220 million
global 5G subscriptions by the end
of 2020, followed by a 3.5 billion
milestone by the end of 2026. Fur-
ther, 5G standalone (SA) networks
are already being launched in North
America and China and 5G device
availability is broadening, with
3
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5G-enabled handsets $300 and less
to become more widespread in 2021.
When looked at by country, rather
than subscribers, VIAVI’s “The State
of 5G” report indicated that 61 coun-
tries — more than 30% of the world’s
countries — had 5G availability as of
January 2021. The VIAVI report also
revealed that globally, 1,336 cities
have 5G networks, compared to 378
in 2020, representing an astonishing
350% increase in just one year.
When broken down by region,
the VIAVI report shows that Asia
in leading with the number of
In 2020, 27 countries
added their first 5G
networks:
Brazil, Canada, Columbia,
Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Czech Republic, Denmark,
France, Greece, Iran,
Israel, Libya, Luxembourg,
Madagascar, Netherlands,
Norway, Seychelles,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Togo,
Japan, Laos, Philippines,
Singapore, Tajikistan
and Thailand.
Source: VIAVI
5G-connected cities, coming in at
528 cities. EMEA is now in second
place with 459 cities and the Amer-
icas region remains in third place
with 5G available across 349 cities.
5G progress in North America and China
In both the Ericsson and VIAVI re-
ports, China and the U.S. continue
to top the 5G charts, with 341 and
279 5G-connected cities, respective-
ly. In China, the number of cities
with 5G grew six-fold in one year,
while coverage in the U.S. increased
by a factor of five.
The above estimate of 220 million
5G subscriptions by the end of 2020
was increased by Ericsson as a re-
sult of China’s faster-than-expected
Concentration of 5G networks around the world
FEATURE REPORT
uptake, which was “driven by a
national strategic focus, intense
competition between service pro-
viders and more affordable 5G
smartphones from several vendors.”
Further, Chinese telecom carriers
are expected to build over 1 million
new 5G base stations in 2021, as the
cost of 5G base stations is expected
to decrease.
China Mobile, specifically, is the
world’s largest operator in terms
of subscribers, and it reportedly
added 17.62 million 5G subscribers
in December, according to statistics
published on the carrier’s website.
The operator said it ended 2020
with a total of 165 million 5G sub-
scribers, compared to 6.7 million 5G
Courtesy of nperf
5
 FEATURE REPORT
customers in January 2020.
As of January 2021, the carrier
has deployed over 385,000 5G base
stations nationwide.
While North America’s 5G sub-
scription forecast remained un-
changed, Ericsson does believe that
by 2026, North America will have
the highest share of 5G subscrip-
tions, accounting for 80% of all mo-
bile subscriptions.
Verizon was the first to turn on
its 5G network in the U.S., but, ac-
cording to Opensignal, T-Mobile ac-
tually has the best 5G availability
of the major providers, with users
able to connect to next-gen services
more than 30% of the time, while
for AT&T customers that number
was 18% and just 9.5% for Verizon
customers. Undoubtedly related,
T-Mobile currently covers 280 mil-
lion people across 1.6 million miles
throughout the U.S. compared to
around 230 million people for AT&T
and Verizon.
LitePoint’s Director of Market-
ing Adam Smith weighed in on the
comparison of China and North
America’s 5G progress, stating that
if you’re measuring by the percent-
age of the population that “has 5G
devices in hand,” China is leading
“hands down.”
6
“They have a national policy to Number of cities in
move rapidly over to a 5G network Country which 5G is available
and they’re incentivizing devices
China 341
with a consumer-friendly price
USA 279
point,” he elaborated, “while in the
South Korea 85
U.S., there is no such thing as a low-
end 5G phone today.” UK 54
Spain 53
Spectrum is the key to unlocking 5G Canada 49
According to Mark Gibson, senior Australia 37
director of business development & Saudi Arabia 37
spectrum policy at CommScope, a
Italy 35
main global 5G focus for 2021 is still
Source: VIAVI
France 24
the acquisition of spectrum because
Thailand 24
5G is incredibly spectrum needy,
making spectrum and its availabil- Sweden 23
ity one of the most critical things
that determines the pace and prog- differentiates 5G rollout from
ress of a country’s 5G rollout. country to country.”
“Spectrum availability has always Regulators around the world
been the key,” Gibson said. “It’s got- do appear to be aware of how im-
ten to the point now, where you can’t portant it is to make this spectrum
talk about a technology around 5G available as quickly as possible.
without really talking about the In 2013, CTIA, in an effort to high-
spectrum implication. Generally, light the urgency of identifying
as you go up in G’s, you multiply by and reallocating enough spectrum
two the amount of spectrum you for 5G, researched how long it
need. Give or take, that’s a general takes for spectrum in the U.S. to
rule of thumb, so in order for us to be reallocated from the day that
be able to have 5G, we needed to get it is identified for wireless. The
a lot more spectrum.” data showed the process has taken
Smith agrees, having previously between six and 18 years — on av-
told RCR Wireless News, “Spec- erage 13 years — from FCC Order to
trum is the number one thing that first deployment.

Timeline of spectrum allocations efforts
The takeaway here, Gibson point-
ed out, is that it took only about six
years to make the CBRS spectrum
available, and the C Band process
was even shorter, coming in at
around four years.
“We put spectrum to use a whole
lot faster than we used to,” he con-
cluded, adding that in the case of
the very recently auctioned off C
Band spectrum, once those licenses
are awarded, the winners can en-
act their plans, ensuring that 2021
will be a good year for 5G deploy-
ment in the U.S.
mmWave
While the overall impact of
COVID-19 on the telecommunica-
tions industry has been minimal,
Smith does believe that the pan-
demic delayed millimeter wave
(mmWave) deployments in Europe.
“The mmWave deployments we
see today are very much in North
America, South Korea and Ja-
pan,” he said, adding that getting
connectivity from mmWave net-
works is still like taking part in a
scavenger hunt.
“It’s not coming to the consumer
FEATURE REPORT
Courtesy of CTIA
at this point; the consumer is going
to it,” he said.
This is somewhat due to the fact
that mmWave is such a high fre-
quency — in the 24 GHz to 100 GHz
range — and therefore, has poor
propagation and penetration.
As a result, Telit’s Contento be-
lieves that mmWave will only be
used in specific environments and
only by certain devices.
“[mmWave networks] will be used
in specific environments since the
coverage is not large. Shopping
malls, for instance,” he said. “On
7
 FEATURE REPORT

the device side, the first device Use of 5G spectrum between 24.25 GHz and 29.5 GHz, countries/
that will benefit from mmWave territories plotted by status of most advanced operator activities
will be the mobile handset, using
really small antennas. Not all de-
vices will be capable of mmWave
because as far as we can see, only
premium devices will support
mmWave, while the rest will just
support sub 6 GHz 5G.”
One such device that does offer
mmWave support is Apple’s U.S.
models of the iPhone 12, a decision
that Smith considered to be a great
sign for broader mmWave adoption.
“The decision will put pressure
on other OEMs to do the same,” rea-
soned Smith.
A November 2020 report conduct-
ed by the Global Mobile Suppliers Countries/territories with (timetable specified) forthcoming auctions,
tenders or assignments for spectrum above 24 GHz, 2020–2022
Association (GSA) showed that, at
the time 24 operators in 15 coun-
tries/territories are known to be al-
ready deploying 5G networks using
mmWave spectrum., while 19 coun-
tries/territories have announced
formal plans for assigning frequen-
cies above 24 GHz between now and
end-2022.
Also of importance are the 95
announced 5G devices that ex-
plicitly support one or more of
the 5G spectrum bands above 24
GHz, up from 59 at the end of
November 2019. Images ourtesy of the GSA

8
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 FEATURE REPORT
• mmWave in the United States
In the U.S., Verizon has expressed
more interest in harnessing the
speed of mmWave than rivals
T-Mobile US and AT&T, having al-
ready brought mmWave services to
67 cities.
However, in November 2020, AT&T
did announce that it was making
its mmWave network — which it
calls 5G+ — available to all users,
as the faster 5G network was pre-
viously only available to its busi-
ness customers. The latest num-
bers show that AT&T has mmWave
networks in parts of 38 U.S. cities
and intends to deploy mmWave in
17 sports venues this year, bring-
ing its total 5G-connected venues
to more than 40. In addition, more
than 30 company-owned retail lo-
cations will get mmWave services
by the end of the year, as well as an
undisclosed number of university
and college campuses.
T-Mobile, on the other hand,
which has been touting its idea of
a spectrum layer cake, has real-
ly only indicated that it will use
mmWave “where it makes sense,”
meaning mostly dense, urban areas.
It’s true that the carrier deployed
mmWave all the way back in 2019,
but since then, it has shifted focus
10
to building out infrastructure that
uses the low-band 600MHz spec-
trum and then of course to the mid-
band 2.5GHz spectrum it acquired
through its merger with Sprint in
April 2020.
CBRS and C Band
In last year’s status of 5G report,
North America was said to be lack-
ing when it came to mid-band 5G
coverage, while in China, securing
mid-band for 5G has been a priority
from the start. However, the spec-
trum environment in the U.S. has
changed significantly since then
due to the CBRS and C Band auc-
tions mentioned earlier.
Smith, who has previously re-
ferred to mid-band spectrum as the
‘goldilocks’ of spectrum, due to its
ideal blend of coverage and capac-
ity, commented that the FCC did a
great job of opening up this “abso-
lutely crucial” spectrum.
“If the U.S. carrier strategy from
the beginning was to focus on
mmWave and then move to mid-
band,” said Smith, “then the U.S. is
executing that.”
The Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) cleared the way
for more 5G mid-band spectrum,
first with the Citizens Broadband
Radio Service (CBRS) 3.5 GHz band
auction, and then with the widely
popular C Band auctions.
CBRS is a band of radio-frequen-
cy spectrum from 3.5GHz to 3.7GHz
that the FCC has designated for
sharing among three tiers of users:
incumbent users, priority licens-
ees and generally authorized,
which is unlicensed. The CBRS
spectrum auction, which made 150
megahertz available for licensed
commercial use, concluded in Au-
gust 2020 and raised a total of $4.6
billion in bids, with Verizon, Dish
Network, Comcast and Charter
Communications emerging as no-
table big spenders.
With access to this newly opened
band, enterprises can deploy LTE
and 5G private cellular networks
in shared spectrum, diminishing
their dependency on spectrum
owned by carriers.
Then there were the C Band auc-
tions, where, according to Smith,
“drunken sailor money was spent.”
To be more precise, the C Band auc-
tion raised a gross total of $81.17
billion, far surpassing the previous
auction record of $44 billion raised
in the AWS-3 auction that ran in
2014-2015.
Verizon, by itself, spent more on

C Band spectrum than the AWS-3
auction raised from all bidders
– $52.9 billion. That amount of
money got Verizon 3,511 licenses
in all of the 406 geographic Par-
tial Economic Areas (PEA) that
make up the United States. Oth-
er top bidders, in terms of dollar
amounts, include AT&T, which
spent $23.4 billion for 1,621 licens-
es in 406 PEAs; T-Mobile US, which
spent $9.3 billion for 142 licenses
in 72 PEAs; and US Cellular, which
spent $1.3 billion for 252 licenses
in 99 PEAs.
AT&T secured 80 megahertz of
spectrum and a 29% share of the
available licenses during the C
Band auctions, and the carrier
said it plans to deploy this mid-
band spectrum starting at the end
of 2021.
Because these mid-band auctions
raked in so much money, Inseego is
already experiencing a high demand
for its hotspots and modems that
support the newly opened bands.
“We’re in the process of finishing
the launch of six of our second-gen-
eration 5G products and they all
support CBRS and the rest of C
Band. The spectrum hasn’t actually
been handed over and build hasn’t
started yet, but there is already a
high interest level from customers,”
Gould revealed.
3450 – 3550 MHz band
Last year, the United States De-
partment of Defense (DoD) agreed
to share spectrum at 3450 – 3550
MHz, allowing the FCC to auction
off another 100 megahertz of mid-
band spectrum for 5G, which is in-
tends to do in October 2021, a few
months earlier than many expected.
Interest in the band for sharing
dates back to a 2010 10-year plan to
open up 500 megahertz of spectrum
for commercial use, with renewed
interest under a 2018 mandate to
examine the possibility of spec-
trum-sharing in a broader range
from 3.1-3.55 GHz. The National Tele-
communications and Information
Administration last year reported
to Congress on the feasibility of
sharing in the band, saying that the
section of that spectrum between
3.45-3.55 GHz was identified as hav-
ing “the highest probability of being
able to accommodate sharing with
commercial wireless services in a
relatively short time frame.”
While the impending auction is
great news, Gibson warned that
there is “a lot of work that is going
to have to be done to make that
spectrum available for 5G.”
“One of things that I’m working on
is trying to find ways that we can
better share spectrum with fed-
eral agencies because most of the
FEATURE REPORT
spectrum that is going to be made
available in the future is probably
going to be from federal users,” he
reasoned. “The tension is how do
we make that spectrum available
quickly and share with people who
don’t really want to share.”
Gibson added that, because spec-
trum of this nature is used primari-
ly by federal users and firms, clear-
ing it also comes with a number of
national security and data avail-
ability challenges.
“The spectrum aspects of this
are probably more prominent here
than it may have been in other
bands,” he said.
The challenges associated with
the 3450-3550 MHz band, however,
have not stopped Gibson’s excite-
ment about the country’s evolving
spectrum landscape. Together, he
explained, the 3450-3550 MHz band
and the C Band represent 380 mega-
hertz of valuable mid-band spec-
trum, and because they are becom-
ing available around the same time,
or within a year or so of each other,
the U.S. is in for a huge 5G push.
“It is even conceivable that you
could have deployments in 3450
before broadscale deployments in
the C Band,” he stated. “What that
means is that, with CBRS in the
middle, you’ll have 530 megahertz
of spectrum that can support 5G,
11
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380 of which can support it at high
power. That, I think, is a big deal.”
5G consumer devices
LitePoint, a wireless device test-
ing company, saw a 10x increase
in 5G mobile phone shipments last
year, according to Smith.
“We went from 20 million units to
200 million last year. This year, we
expect that to more than double
again with the estimates around
450 million, for some flavor of 5G,”
he continued.
Gartner’s mobile phone sales fore-
cast provided more specific num-
bers, showing that in 2020, there
were a total of 221 million 5G mo-
bile phones sold, accounting for 12%
of overall mobile phone sales. In
2021, the report predicts that there
will be 489 million 5G units sold.
For Smith, the availability and
prevalence of 5G devices will be the
litmus test of 5G’s true reach. “This
year, if we achieve [the projected]
450 million [5G] smartphone ship-
ments, we can plant the flag that
5G is a mainstream mobile technol-
ogy,” he said.
Further, like everything else re-
lated to 5G, device availability is
occurring faster than in previous
generations. When compared to 4G,
claimed Smith, 5G attach rates are
FEATURE REPORT
one to two years ahead. 5G smartphone sales forecast,
More broadly, the Gartner report 2029-2021, worldwide
showed that the worldwide smart- (thousands of units)
phone sales will grow by 11% in 2021
Year Units
with 5G phones accounting for 35%
Source: Gartner
of the market, a statistic of partic- 2019 16,705
ular interest due to the fact that 2020 213,260
smartphone sales have been flat 2021 538,530
or declining for a number of years.
Last year, for instance, the market technology, of course. When it
reported a 10.5% decline due to the comes to wearables, which Ernst
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic said is a hot market, particularly in
on the industry. the wellness sector, 5G isn’t much
In 2020, secondary device market of a driver at the moment.
specialist Blancco reported that “Most wearables today are tied
nearly 70% of consumers indicat- to a separate mobile device, so the
ed interest in upgrading to a 5G need is more around battery life
device, which Russ Ernst, the com-
pany’s executive vice president of
products and technology, said will
result in a massive influx of devices
hitting the secondary market.
“5G is being pulled into what I’ll
call a mobile device upgrade super
cycle,” he said. “We see the second-
ary device market as growing at a
comparable rate of over 11% as fore-
casted by IDC between 2020 and
2024. That’s really being driven by
“This year, if we achieve [the
projected] 450 million [5G]
the availability of a true flagship
smartphone shipments, we can
level device with the iPhone 12, for
plant the flag that 5G is a main-
example, at a really palatable con-
stream mobile technology.”
sumer price point.”
Adam Smith, Director of Marketing,
Smartphones aren’t the only con-
LitePoint
sumer devices connected to cellular
13
 FEATURE REPORT

cycle,” he explained, “and so they’re
leveraging other communication
technology, like Bluetooth.”
However, he does believe that
sometime in the near future, 5G
will “creep” into wearables, but 2021
will likely not be the year for that.
5G enterprise trend: Private networks
Contento told RCR Wireless News
that 5G has been getting a great
deal of traction in the enterprise
space, particularly when it comes
to securing more broadband.
“I see 5G as an evolution of the
previous technology to provide
more bandwidth, more throughput
and also to show the market that
a company is on the high point of
technology and be able to deliver
services based on 5G,” he said
He added that 5G’s ability to en-
able new use cases is of particular
interest to Telit and that the com-
pany is “looking carefully” at 5G
private network deployments.
“For the first time,” Contento stat-
ed, “we can explore the use of cellu-
lar technology in an industrial envi-
ronment, with the dream to be able
to replace all of the copper lines to
reduce cost and get more flexibility.”
When used inside of an enter-
prise’s facility, cellular technology,
particularly 5G, which was archi-
tected to support high data rates
and the low latency necessary for
some IoT applications, can be an
extremely reliable and secure solu-
tion to connect critical assets if it is
deployed and managed correctly.
Interest in private cellular net-
works, which are seen by many as a
major opportunity to set up bespoke
networks in support of industrial in-
ternet of things projects, is growing.
ABI Research predicts that private
cellular network deployments with-
in the enterprise domain will gen-
erate equipment revenues of more
than $64 billion by 2030.
Leo Gergs, Research Analyst for
5G Markets at ABI Research, com-
mented that the findings demon-
strate “the huge momentum” be-
hind private cellular networks
functioning as “a key enabler for
enterprise digitization.”
“As enterprises require high-
ly customized deployment solu-
tions, including deterministic and
time-sensitive networking and
are governed by strict regulations
regarding data protection and net-
work integrity, the deployment of
a private cellular network will be
their first choice,” he continued.
Further, Grand View Research es-
timated that the global private 5G
network market size will register
a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 37.8% from 2021 to 2027.
However, not everyone is as con-
vinced that private networks are
ready to deliver on their promise.
“Private networks have been a
huge marketing play, but the prac-
tical deployment of them have
mostly been limited to press releas-

“For the first time, we can explore
the use of cellular technology in
an industrial environment, with
the dream to be able to […] re-
duce cost and get more flexibility.”
Marco Contento, Vice President of
Technologies, Telit
es,” argued Smith. “Speaking from
the device side, we’re just not seeing
a huge tick up in devices that would
run on a private network.”
He added that it remains to be
seen if private networks are just in
their early stages of if it’s just hype.

14
 FEATURE REPORT

North America private 5G network market size, by component, 2020 – 2027 (USD Million)

(Courtesy of Grand View Research)

A Verizon did make a decision early on to
focus on mmWave because we had a
path to obtain that spectrum and we also be-
lieve that the first 5G we rolled out, should be
a game changer for customers, and mmWave
provides increased speeds and capacity. We
felt we should be able to provide that game
changing experience for customers and at the
same time, maintain, or even improve, the ex-
perience for our 4G customers.
We built [mmWave] and we are continuing
very similar to our 4G network, but that allows
us to share our low-band spectrum with both
4G and 5G customers. This will allow us to
elegantly move our customers over to the 5G
network once they get 5G capable devices. As
we get additional software that will provide ad-
ditional functionality, all those customers will
be on the NR network on the new 5G tech-
nology, and we will be able to start to provide
them experiences that look different from our
LTE experience.

Q and A with Verizon’s VP of

Technology Heidi Hemmer
to build that where customer experience mat-
ters. Places like stadiums and outdoors venues,
the middle of cities, in parks. Places where the
Q Speaking of customer experience, can
you describe what that will be like as
one walks through one of Verizon’s 5G-con-
use cases that our customers would use require nected cities?

Q Tell me a little bit about Verizon’s 5G

spectrum strategy. Why the early focus
on mmWave?
that speed, capacity and low latency.
Then, in October of last year, we launched
our nationwide 5G network, which today, is
A Today, on 5G and 4G, we utilize all the
spectrum that we currently hold on our
portfolio. That can vary from market to mar-

15
 FEATURE REPORT
ket, but we built the network and optimized
it through software to be able to seamlessly
have your phone hand down and hand back
up across those spectrum bands.
So, today, if you were within the coverage
area of a 5G Ultra Wide Band or mmWave net-
work, your iPhone 12, for example, would have
a 5G UW icon in the corner. If you then moved
into a 5G nationwide area, you would see the
5G icon, but not the UW. Your speeds would be
very different in these two areas. If you go into
an area that we haven’t put the 5G equipment
at all, you’d see the LTE icon.
Q Is 2021 the year for consumer 5G?
A I feel like 2020 was definitely the start
of that. It’s hard to answer that for 2021
because who knows what’s going to happen,
but I am optimistic that we, as a society, are
going to go back closer to what we were like
in 2018, meaning that we’ll be more mobile
and out and about. I don’t know what normal
means anymore, but we will have a network
that is ready for that shift back.
Q How did Verizon manage to continue its
5G rollout despite the challenges pre-
sented by COVID-19?
A We actually had incredibly ambitious
targets in place prior to being hit with
the pandemic, but we still hit all of our targets
or exceeded them. One of the biggest things
from a 5G perspective, is we had to scale
the small cells we were building by over five
times. That is because one of the downsides of
16
mmWave is it doesn’t cover very far.
One of the things that building a lot of
small cells requires is a lot of permits, and
when COVID hit, most of the permitting offices
shut down, so we worked with those offices
to help them get onto digital platforms. Be-
fore COVID, we had already been working on
a digital platform to help the municipalities
just because of the sheer growth in the num-
bers, but when everyone went home as a re-
sult of COVID, we would not have been able to
keep the permit pipeline and the builds going
without the ability to transfer information with
those offices in a safe way. We were able to
keep those permits flowing for us.
In addition, when most geographies were
shut down, we actually worked with the mu-
nicipalities to increase our construction rate
because there was no traffic on the street. One
of things we’ve done to scale is made use of
our fiber arm, and with everything shut down,
we were able to dig up streets and build ahead
on some of our fiber.
Q What are some of Verizon’s main 5G
goals for 2021 and what did it accom-
plish in 2020?
A We currently have 67 Ultra Wide Band
cities and will build 61 by the end of
last year. We will continue to add more cities
between now and the end of 2021, reaching a
total of 80 by the end of the year. We are also
continuing to densify and increase the cover-
age in those 67 that we have already built.
We are currently in 54 stadiums and are-
nas and will do a little more this year. We actu-
ally have a partnership with the NBA for 5G.
We launched nationwide for over 200 million
people, which includes 2,700 cities that we
cover. You’ll continue to see that number grow.
We have the 5G home product that is currently
in 18 markets and we currently have 10 MEC
markets with another 10 expected this year.
Q Why, from your perspective, is 5G accel-
erating faster than previous generations?
A I helped build 3G and 4G, and now I’m
building 5G, so I have seen that each
one is adopted and built sooner. First, our cus-
tomers want it so badly. As the devices and the
network have been able to provide more and
more applications and useability, our custom-
ers just rely on them so much, so they are less
patient to get that next tech upgrade.
Second, as we become more software cen-
tric, it is easier to deploy the next generation.
It’s not easy, but once we get the equipment
out there, any sort of upgrades can be done
via software now.
Q What made the C Band so much of a
priority not just for Verizon, specifically,
but the entire transition to 5G in the U.S.?
A The excitement around 5G is palpable.
As customers and enterprises realize
what 5G can enable in this time of digital
transformation, it is critical to continue ex-
panding our 5G reach to meet the demand
and provide the revolutionary changes that
accompany a technology with these funda-
mental capabilities. With the addition of this

new C Band spectrum to our overall spectrum
portfolio, we will continue to expand the indus-
try leading 5G network which is the platform
that enables 21st century innovation. C Band
provides a valuable middle ground between
capacity and range for 5G networks, provid-
ing greater capacity and speeds than low
band and greater coverage than mmWave. By
advancing our network with C Band, we can
accelerate the pace of innovation for our own
company and for our customers.
An additional and very appealing aspect of
C Band is that it is a widely used band glob-
ally with a mature ecosystem of chipsets, de-
vices and network infrastructure. That means
deployment will be faster and global roaming
and interoperability capabilities will be possi-
ble on this band.
Q What are Verizon’s plans for the new
mid-band spectrum?
A We have been planning for this for many,
many months within the guidelines of
the auction rules, and are already working with
our equipment and infrastructure partners to
make this our fastest-ever deployment of new
spectrum. We expect to cover more than 250
million POPs in 2024 and beyond.
But mobility is only part of what we will de-
liver on C-Band. We are disrupting the Home
market by providing fixed wireless access
home internet solutions. For the first time,
many customers will have a choice in their
internet provider as we bring them LTE Home
Internet and 5G Home. As we roll out C Band,
Verizon’s 5G coverage map
FEATURE REPORT
more and more customers will get this choice.
Q What are some of the company’s other
2021 goals?
A With the 2021 spectrum clearing activ-
ity underway in the initial 46 markets,
we intend to have incremental 5G bandwidth
available to 100 million POPs in the first half
of 2022: 46 markets, delivering 5G Ultra
Wideband performance on our C Band spec-
trum with peak speeds of 1 gigabit per sec-
ond. These great speeds and throughputs are
just the beginning. Over 2022 and 2023, we
expect to increase the coverage to more than
175 million POPs in the 46 markets. And when
the remaining C band is cleared, we expect to
cover more than 250 million POPs in 2024
and beyond.
Courtesy of Verizon
17
 FEATURE REPORT

Conclusion
When it comes to widespread 5G
adoption, there is a global eager-
ness to get there, evident in the
speed with which spectrum has
been made available, networks
have been rolled out, devices have
hit the market, and even the in-
dustry’s perseverance through a
uniquely challenging year. Driving
this eagerness is a great need for
more bandwidth and lower latency,
both in our homes and at our offic-
es and facilities.
But it’s more than that. 5G isn’t
just the next generation of cellular
technology; it is a central building
block in the larger conversation
around digital transformation
and innovation. It has found itself
bumping up against concepts like
cloud native and C-V2X and rub-
bing shoulders with technologies
like edge computing and artificial
intelligence. In some cases, 5G is
the one enabling these technolo-
gies, while in other cases, it is the
one being enabled by them.
“People look at 5G as if it’s in a silo,
but it’s not,” argued Pearson. “It’s
part of this real movement of tech-
nology innovation that’s within it,
around it and enabled by it, even as
it enables others. 5G is enabling in-
novation and it’s being enabled by
innovation.”
“It’s a really key moment in time,”
he added.
Editor’s note: Arden Media Editors Juan
Pedro Tomás and Kelly Hill contributed to
this report.

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