Verizon and three other Telcos Launch 5G Services

Four mobile carriers have commercially rolled out 5G services earlier than expected, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The mobile carriers include America’s Verizon Communications and South Korea’s SK Telecom along with two others.

Last week, SK Telecom and the other two carriers had intended to initially roll out 5G services on Samsung’s new 5G smartphone- Galaxy S10.

The expected launch date of 5G by Verizon was on April 11 but it announced in March that 5G could be used on the following Motorola’s devices- Moto Z3 and “Moto Mod”.

There are few countries such as the US, South Korea, and Japan which are emphasizing on 5G launch in a hope that the new technology will spur innovation in fields such as self-driving cars and smart cities.

5G technologies have the potential to deliver more speed than the current 4G long-term evolution (LTE) networks. 5G technologies can also provide better support for VR and AI with low latency.  At an average 5G will deliver 20 times more speed than 4G but sometimes its speed could shoot up 100 times faster.

According to South Korea, they were the first country to introduce 5G, but the US claims that it had launched 5G in limited areas as early as last year.

In December 2018, U.S. telco AT&T Inc unveiled its “commercial and standards-based” 5G network. But, the service could only be used in mobile hotspot devices.

People familiar with the matter said that SK Telecom had internal discussions and prepared to roll out 5G early as it was ready with networks and customers.