Verizon CFO: “5G” Home Fixed Wireless Exceeds Promised Speeds; Partnerships with Video Content Providers

Verizon is pleased with the performance of its fixed wireless network, “5G Home,”* which has offered better speeds than promised in “a lot of cases,” said Chief Financial Officer Matthew Ellis. Although the fixed wireless service was introduced in four initial markets using non-standard equipment, Verizon plans “to transition to the global standard (?) as soon as equipment is available,” Ellis said.  Later, Verizon expects to offer Verizon 5G Home outside its traditional local service territory.

Ellis made his comments at the Morgan Stanley European Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in Barcelona.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

* IMPORTANT NOTE: As we’ve repeatedly explained, Verizon’s “5G” fixed wireless network is based on a proprietary spec. More importantly there is no standard 5G fixed wireless access because it is not being considered (i.e. no use case) for ITU-R IMT 2020. There are NO FUTURE STANDARDS imminent for 5G fixed wireless access. Instead, ALL SO CALLED 5G FIXED WIRELESS OFFERINGS ARE PROPRIETARY WITH NO INTEROPERABILITY!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“The product works exactly as expected,” said Ellis in a transcript from the conference published by Seeking Alpha. “And in some cases – a lot of cases – at speeds higher than the minimums that we promised in the commercial offerings.”

When Verizon 5G Home was announced, the company said the offering would support typical network speeds around 300 Mbps and up to 1 Gbps peak speed. The service sells for $50 monthly with a qualifying Verizon Wireless service or $70 a month for non-Verizon Wireless users.

Verizon has said that it sees a potential market of 30 million homes for Verizon 5G Home, and although some industry observers see that as overly optimistic, Ellis said “we certainly still see line of sight to getting to 30 million households in the U.S. with that product over the next few years.”

Ellis said Verizon launched the service initially in only four markets because the equipment the company will use initially to support the offering is not based on standards. The company made the decision to launch with non-standard equipment in order to get to market quickly.

“We want to transition to the global standard as soon as equipment is available,” he said.

In 2019, he said, “you’ll see more activity… than this year” involving Verizon 5G Home. A big piece of deployment plans is “getting the fiber in the ground in a number of cities to hook up the 5G network.”

The fiber deployment is particularly important considering that Verizon is deploying 5G in the 28 GHz band – a strategy that will help maximize bandwidth but over relatively short distances, requiring extensive backhaul infrastructure. As equipment becomes available, Verizon’s 5G network will support both fixed and mobile service, and backhaul costs will be shared across both services, thereby enhancing the business case for both offerings, Ellis noted.

“You should assume we’ll start in a city in the central area, and once we get enough scale in that city, we’ll launch the network in that city and then the build moves out within that city limit into suburban areas and so on,” he explained. “And as we do, we’ll just add homes toward the 30 million number.”

Ellis offered some commentary about Verizon’s decision to offer a YouTube over-the-top video service to 5G Home customers. He noted that when Verizon launched FiOS fiber broadband service, the decision was made to curate a traditional pay-TV offering to be delivered over the same platform. But as content costs have outpaced what Verizon can charge for video service, the company has moved away from that model.

With Verizon 5G Home, he said, “we felt the right approach . . . was to say ‘there are some viable OTT offerings – and if you’ve got a great broadband experience, which is what our 5G Home product is, OTT is the right way to deliver the content that the customer wants to have.’”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

From the Wall Street Journal:  Banking on 5G

Verizon’s biggest transaction to date was the $130 billion purchase of full control of Verizon Wireless in 2013. Executives have stressed to analysts and investors in recent months that they are focused primarily on building out the carrier’s 5G network—which they say will generate additional revenue by powering new technology used in factories, hospitals and cities.

Verizon explored, but didn’t ultimately pursue, acquisitions of companies such as CBS Corp. , and this year told investors it isn’t interested in buying a content creator. Instead of acquiring content, it is offering its first 5G customers live channels, movies and shows through streaming partnerships with Apple TV and Google’s YouTube TV.

The carrier is in discussions with Apple and Google about partnerships that could extend the video services to a broader group of its cable and wireless subscribers and include some content from Verizon’s Oath digital-media unit, according to people familiar with those discussions. Those plans could be announced as soon as this month, the people said.

Sajod Moradi, a senior credit analyst at Macquarie Investment Management, says Verizon’s partnerships will allow it to benefit from expanded content offerings without creating the pressure to generate excess cash flow to pay down debt.

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said in a recent interview the carrier was exploring ways to apply 5G technology to the media, augmented-reality and virtual-reality brands within the unit.

References:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4222109-verizon-communications-inc-vz-presents-morgan-stanley-european-technology-media-and-telecom?dr=1

https://www.telecompetitor.com/cfo-verizon-5g-home-fixed-wireless-exceeds-promised-speeds/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-and-verizon-pursue-different-paths-into-the-future-1541999131

6 thoughts on “Verizon CFO: “5G” Home Fixed Wireless Exceeds Promised Speeds; Partnerships with Video Content Providers

  1. During a “5G Cage Match,” Kevin Leonard, AT&T’s vice president of alternate channels and the leader of its Alliance Channel; Chris Lewter, Verizon’s vice president and general manager of SMB sales and distribution; Jonathan Blood, T-Mobile‘s vice president of direct to business and indirect @work; and Mike Mudd, Broad Sky Networks’ founder and president, talked about what partners can expect as 5G becomes widely available.

    Lewter pointed out that Verizon already has launched 5G in restricted areas of certain cities, and now is lining up subscribers. He also said the telco is starting to “spin up ideas for applications” and that 5G is a “much bigger deal than we thought about prior.”

    Leonard said AT&T is planning to launch its first 5G device and urged partners not to “wait for us for the use cases; learn about what 5G will bring you.” He also said partners shouldn’t be waiting for 5G to embrace IoT…
    … IoT is “exploding and here to stay, and some won’t require 5G.”

    Blood said 5G is not just about speed, but also the ability to connect more devices in one area. “You’ve got to get involved,” he said. “Lean on us, we will send people to your meetings, your offices [to] help you make those sales. You’re providing them the next technology that is going to make their lives easier.”

    https://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2018/11/15/att-verizon-battle-in-5g-cage-match-at-planetone-event/

  2. Verizon Restructuring Puts Emphasis on 5G

    The telecommunications company is restructuring its operating units into consumer, business and media.

    Recently appointed CEO Hans Vestberg said Monday that Verizon’s push to lead the 5G market impacted the reorganization, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2019.

    “This new structure reflects a clear strategy that starts with Verizon customers,” said Vestberg. “We’re building on our network-transformation efforts and the Intelligent Edge architecture to deliver new customer experiences and optimize the growth opportunities we see as leaders in the 5G era. We’re focused on how our technology can benefit customers’ lives and society at large.”

  3. Verizon Restructuring Puts Emphasis on 5G

    The telecommunications company is restructuring its operating units into consumer, business and media.

    Recently appointed CEO Hans Vestberg said Monday that Verizon’s push to lead the 5G market impacted the reorganization, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2019.

    “This new structure reflects a clear strategy that starts with Verizon customers,” said Vestberg. “We’re building on our network-transformation efforts and the Intelligent Edge architecture to deliver new customer experiences and optimize the growth opportunities we see as leaders in the 5G era. We’re focused on how our technology can benefit customers’ lives and society at large.”

    https://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2018/11/05/verizon-restructuring-puts-emphasis-on-5g/

  4. Verizon’s work is the product of the company’s own 5G Technical Forum (5G TF) — a partnership with network architects Cisco and Nokia; device makers Ericsson, LG, and Samsung; and platform makers Intel and Qualcomm. But as CNET’s Roger Cheng was first to note, the products of 5G TF utilize access technologies that are proprietary to the Verizon network, and thus cannot be industry-wide standards.

    However, as Verizon’s technical documentation points out, much of the infrastructure of 5G TF is grounded in true 5G technology, most notably including its Radio Access Network (5G-RAN). All carriers have their own access technologies, and will continue to do so even in the 5G era. So there is a case to be made that, even though Verizon’s 5G Home may not be officially 5G now, it will be once 5G actually “arrives.”

    In the meantime, expect some discussion throughout CES 2019 on the integration with cellular networks with the Internet of Things. One technology platform certain to bring the IoT into the 5G discussion is NB-IoT, a system that extends cellular signals to small, distributed devices, in a home, a factory floor, or conceivably across an entire campus. A company called Digi will be among those demonstrating NB-IoT this year

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/ces-2019-are-the-newly-launched-5g-services-truly-5g-wireless/

  5. There is definitely a great deal more to learn about Verizon’s “5G” Home Fixed Wireless service, especially when it changes from proprietary spec based to 3GPP Release 15 NR NSA.
    Will Verizon then maintain two different versions of that service or replace the proprietary version with 5G NR version?
    How will 5G Home Fixed Wireless impact Verizon’s FiOS subscribers who have fiber to their homes?
    Will Verizon eventually replace fiber based FioS with some version of Fixed Wireless service?

    I like all the points you have made. Many thanks for your dedication to the IEEE Techblog.

Comments are closed.