Verizon, T-Mobile defend 5G spectrum strategies
Posted on September 25, 2020 by Pivotal Commware
The 5G strategies of Verizon and T-Mobile couldn’t be more different, as executives from both carriers presented updates to their rollouts this week.
Of course, much of it boils down to the spectrum they bought at auction and on the secondary markets: Verizon in one corner with a stash of millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, and T-Mobile in the other with vast holdings of 600 MHz and – through a very public two-year battle to merge with Sprint – all of Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum. T-Mobile also holds mmWave spectrum and Verizon has lower-band spectrum, but those are not, currently, the biggest stars of the show.
Verizon, for its part, is digging in its heels when it comes to high-band millimeter wave, despite critics who say its deployment costs are too high and the signal range too limited. As T-Mobile’s Neville Ray quipped Tuesday when referring to his rival’s 5G tag line: “Verizon’s built right… I think the question is, built where?”
Verizon: mmWave as differentiator
A lot of successes have happened since Verizon first launched a 5G network accessible with 5G smartphones in April 2019, when it turned on its Ultra Wideband (UWB) mobile service in Minneapolis and Chicago, according to Nicola Palmer, chief product development officer at Verizon.
Read the full article at Fierce Wireless