Verizon to launch world's first 5G internet service in October

5G has quickly gone from pipe dream to reality, with American telco Verizon set to launch the world's first commercial 5G service at the start of October. Dubbed 5G Home, Verizon's product is essentially 5G-powered fixed home wireless and will be available in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento.

What's more interesting is what you get: USD$50 per month will get existing Verizon customers unlimited data at speeds between 300Mbps and 1Gbps, depending on location. Customers without a Verizon mobile service will pay USD$70 per month.

While Australians obviously can't sign up for this, Telstra and Optus have both stated that fixed home wireless will be one of the first 5G services they launch when their respective networks are ready. If they're at all comparable to Verizon's 5G Home, 5G home internet could quickly become a more than worthy NBN alternative.

For reference, the 300Mbps speeds available on Verizon home are roughly three times faster than the fastest NBN widely available NBN speed tier. 5G networks will eventually be capable of download speeds as fast as 20Gbps when using high-frequency low-range mmWave bands. Locally, Telstra has achieved network speeds around 3Gbps using mmWave technology.

In terms of a real world example of what this speed means, 5G could provide a massive improvement in mobile video streaming. Qualcomm expects 5G's median streaming quality to be 8K at 120 FPS with 10-bit HDR colour, up from 2K at 30 FPS with 8-bit colour over 4G. This might sound like overkill, but this kind of quality could facilitate new ways to stream video, such as in immersive 360-degree virtual reality.

Telstra already has its 5G network up and running on the Gold Coast and in Toowoomba, but the lack of 5G-enabled devices means regular Australians can't quite take advantage of it yet.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

Read full bio

Find a better internet plan

Thousands of internet plans unpacked. All the facts. No surprises.

Powered By

Any Speed 0-25 Mbps 26-50 Mbps 51-100 Mbps 101-500 Mbps 501-750 Mbps 751-1000 Mbps 1001 Mbps+

Search 34 Providers

Checking prices and plans

Powered By Comparisons Powered By

How WhistleOut Works