Verizon plans to introduce commercial 5G service in four U.S. cities this year, including Los Angeles, CEO Lowell McAdam told CNBC Tuesday.
The nation’s top carrier initially set a target of “three to five” markets with 5G service by the end of 2018; Los Angeles, meanwhile, is the second city to be disclosed by Verizon, which named Sacramento as the site of its launch of fixed wireless 5G service.
McAdam also referenced Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as one of the local elected leaders with whom “we’ve had some great partnerships.”
“We want to really be able to show the scale of 5G and the impact that it’ll have on people across all the applications,” McAdam said.
He said Verizon’s acquisition of fiber and spectrum assets would be able to deliver a full suite of 5G services and push into new markets “at a good cost that we’ve never been able to do before.”
McAdam noted that the carrier will have more than 1,000 cell sites operating on global 5G standards late this year, which will shift into a “mobile environment” as 5G devices enter the market early next year.
“The beauty of how we’re architecting our network is it’s a multi-purpose network, so whether we offer fixed wireless or mobile or an enterprise service, it doesn’t matter,” McAdam told CNBC. “That allows us to drive our costs down and serve more customers.”
Filed Under: 5G
