Verizon announced yesterday that it now has access to the total amount of 5G C-band spectrum awarded at auction in March 2021 – four months ahead of schedule. This allows Verizon to more quickly expand and enhance its 5G Ultra Wideband network nationwide, more than doubling and, in some markets, tripling the 5G bandwidth available to serve customers. The carrier anticipates this will provide much greater capacity to accommodate more customers and services, as well as enable higher data speeds. This additional spectrum is designed to also allow Verizon to offer 5G Home broadband and Business Internet services to more customers.
“Early access to the remainder of the C-band spectrum puts us another four months ahead of schedule from our original projections. This additional spectrum will make 5G Ultra Wideband available to even more Americans, and will open up more availability of our home and business broadband solutions,” said Joe Russo, EVP & President of Global Networks and Technology for Verizon. “The more spectrum we deploy on our network, the more capacity we add for our customer’s to connect.”
Since Verizon began deploying 5G service using C-band spectrum, its 5G service has been made available to more than 222 million people in 359 markets. More than 40 million households have access to Verizon’s Home Internet with 384,000 new customers subscribing to Verizon’s Fixed Wireless Access based home internet products (both LTE and 5G) in the second quarter of this year alone, bringing total FWA customers to 2.3 million.
Verizon won C-band licenses for between 140-200 MHz in all available markets (406 PEAs), and began deploying 60 MHz in the first 46 areas in 2022. As the additional spectrum has been cleared by satellite companies outside of the first 46 areas, Verizon says it’s been able to deploy 5G Ultra Wideband using a portion of its licensed bandwidth in more markets coast to coast. Now, with final clearance from the satellite incumbents, Verizon will be able to use the entirety of its licensed C-band spectrum, an average of 161 MHz coast-to-coast, with some markets accessing a full 200 MHz.
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