With the technology world’s attention turned towards Las Vegas and CES 2020, Verizon has announced that it plans to launch 20 5G devices in the next 12 months. And for those concerned about the cost of such products, the company has guaranteed that there will be more affordable options.
In the first half of 2020, Verizon plans to release phones under $800 (£609) and in the second half it will release phones priced under $600 (£457).
Ronan Dunne, the CEO of Verizon Wireless, declined to name any specific devices that are coming this year, but said that the price of devices is likely to go down. He also said that he had to turn down vendor partners wanting to build 5G phones.
Catching the Verizon mmWave
he promise of 20 new devices is huge as many have questioned how much support Verizon’s type of 5G has gathered. Its 5G operates on millimetre wave which offers super-fast speeds but the coverage is extremely limited.
Whereas, the majority of the world uses a lower-band spectrum which doesn’t offer much faster speeds than 4G LTE but offers a much larger coverage.
"People who want to be taken seriously in the 5G world will have millimeter wave [also known as mmWave]," Dunne said.
Last year, Verizon launched the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, the Galaxy Note 10 5G, the LG V50 ThinQ 5G, the Moto Z4 with 5G Moto Mod and a 5G wireless hotspot. And Dunne said that he expects most of the 20 devices this year to be phones, with only a few hotspots.
One thing Verizon does hope to rectify in 2020 is the limited range of its 5G service. It plans to use Dynamic Spectrum Sharing to take its existing 4G spectrum and deploy 5G alongside it, which will help create a broader coverage.
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