Verizon Wireless is apparently looking to field test its upcoming “5G” network sometime in 2016, the carrier claiming speeds of up to 50 times that of its current 4G LTE network.
The company has laid out plans to test the service with partners such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung, and have established working teams to ensure an aggressive pace of innovation.
The 5G network test environments, or “sandboxes”, are created in Verizon’s Waltham, Massachusetts and San Francisco Innovation Centers.
In a recent interview, Verizon chief information and technology architect Roger Gurnani said the company expects to offer “some level of commercial deployment” for its 5G network sometime in 2017. He did not offer any further details of which markets in the US would be the first to have Verzion’s faster network.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.