Verizon Pleased With Early 5G Results

Verizon’s fixed 5G offering is a success, Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis said Tuesday on an earnings call he billed as the first such in this fifth-generation era. The pilot went live Oct. 1 in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento (see 1810010028). “We've seen performance as we've expected since we started doing … installs,” Ellis said. “The technology works, our customers are getting the experience they expected and we are getting a lot of good learning which will benefit us next year when we rollout the product to that much larger audience.” Ellis said Verizon is well positioned. “True 5G requires an ultra-wideband solution, utilizing millimeter-wave spectrum to address the full array of use cases that 5G enables," as well as deep fiber, lots of small cells, the right spectrum holdings and “mobile edge computing capabilities," he said. "All of which we have been assembling for years.” Verizon is pushing gear-makers to move as quickly as possible on 5G, Ellis said: “We will be ready to deploy both on the network side and the customer side when the equipment is ready.” Ellis said the carrier appreciates FCC work to speed up siting of wireless infrastructure. “Our teams have been engaged with municipalities across the country on getting permits to put up small cells whether for 4G or 5G,” he said. “We are going as fast as we can. And while the federal level rules are helpful, [siting] is still a very local activity municipality-by-municipality.” Verizon reported net income of $5 billion in Q3, compared with $3.7 billion the same period last year, on revenue of $32.6 billion. Verizon had 515,000 retail postpaid net adds, including 510,000 postpaid smartphone adds. “Verizon estimates the market opportunity for 5G Home is about 30 million homes nationwide as the operator expands the availability of the services over the next several years, likely targeting markets where it has the most opportunity to poach subscribers seeking an alternative to limited and/or relatively expensive available broadband options,” said Technology Business Research.