Verizon 5G Home network internet service available in 4 US cities on October 1

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• Verizon will be the first internet service provider to offer
  a 5G home internet service.
• The service, called Verizon 5G Home, will offer customers
  higher speeds than most are used to.
• It’ll only be available in four cities to begin with. 

Verizon announced on Tuesday evening that it will begin selling
the first 5G home internet service starting Thursday at 8 a.m.
ET, with the service rolling out to four cities beginning on
October 1st.

5G is the evolution of the wireless 4G LTE technology that most
of us use on our smartphones. The major difference with 5G is
that it’s much faster and can be used outside of mobile uses,
such as home internet.

In Verizon’s case, wireless 5G technology is replacing the
typical wired home broadband internet service. 5G wireless
internet data will be delivered to homes by “small cells” —
essentially mini cell towers — compared to the current wired
infrastructure.

Verizon says that customers of the new service, Verizon 5G Home,
“should expect typical network speeds around 300 Mbps and,
depending on location, peak speeds of nearly 1 Gbps, with no data
caps.” In short, Verizon 5G Home customers should typically
expect extremely fast internet speeds.

1 Gbps translates to 1,000 Mbps, which would let you
download a 1 GB file in eight seconds, which is incredibly fast.
Even the 300 Mbps speeds that customers should typically expect
is fast, allowing customers to download a 1 GB file in 28
seconds. 

To compare, the average home internet speeds in the US as
of May 2018 measured in at 92.93 Mbps, according to PCMag.
Those speeds would let you download a 1 GB file in one minute and
32 seconds. 

At the national average of 92.93 Mbps, internet speeds in
the US can handle any kind of streaming, even 4K video streaming,
without any issues. However, Verizon’s 5G Home service that
offers even higher speeds paves the way for more data-intensive
use cases in the future. 

Logistics and initial limitations

Verizon’s 5G Home service will be free for the first three
months, after which the service will cost $50 per month for
existing Verizon customers, and $70 per month for non-Verizon
customers.

Customers from any city can sign up for the Verizon 5G Home
service on Thursday, but the service will only go live on October
1 in four cities to begin with: Houston, Indianapolis, Los
Angeles, and Sacramento.

For customers outside of those four initial cities, signing up
for Verizon’s 5G home internet service will grant them early
access to Verizon’s 5G Home service when it becomes available.

Verizon will offer free installation of routers and router
upgrades that will support its 5G Home service. 

As part of the 5G Home deal, you’ll get YouTube’s TV service for
free for the first three months, after which it’ll cost users $40
per month. Customers will also get a free Apple TV 4K or Google
Chromecast Ultra, too.