Verizon’s 5G home internet is sort of real, sort of fake
Verizon became the first major ISP to launch 5G home internet service yesterday. It’s a major step on the road to making 5G a reality, but if you’ve ever in your life interacted with an internet provider, you’re probably at least a little bit skeptical: is this really 5G?
The answer is sort of. In a phone call yesterday, Verizon’s chief technology architect, Ed Chan, said that the newly launched home 5G service uses a number of technologies that have been deemed a part of 5G. Most important among those is the use of millimeter wave, the radio waves that will be the backbone of 5G connections. Millimeter wave connections work over a much shorter distance, but they’re far faster, enabling Verizon to deliver gigabit speeds wirelessly.
But...