Today, Verizon shared a press release highlighting strong revenue numbers and a significant number of added lines in the second quarter of 2021. For me, the most interesting part of the press release was this line:
Earlier this week, Verizon shared a press release detailing the company’s plans for deploying C-band equipment. As the equipment is deployed, Verizon will start making use of a huge swath of C-band spectrum it recently spent over $45 billion acquiring.
Some of the spectrum still needs to be cleared by previous holders. Further, it will take Verizon some time to roll out its new equipment. Here’s what Verizon’s deployment targets look like right now:
That’s based on this bit from Verizon’s press release:
Major networks are gradually phasing out 3G technology. Today, Verizon announced a new deadline for 3G retirement: December 31, 2022.1
Verizon has set and pushed back deadlines a few times:
I wonder if Verizon always knew it would push back the early deadlines. Even if the early deadlines were artificial, they may have helped transition subscribers off of 3G-only devices:
In today’s announcement, Verizon stated that it would not push back the retirement deadline again. I’m unsure whether Verizon will keep a tiny portion of its 3G network active after 2022 to support business customers using legacy technology.
Verizon won a bunch of spectrum in the recent C-Band Auction. That spectrum will be deployed over the next few years and will soon form a core part of Verizon’s network.
Eli Blumenthal, a reporter for CNET, recently shared this tweet:
Verizon confirms that to access C-Band you will need a premium unlimited plan like its Play More, Do More and Get More. If you have an older plan you'll only have access to its DSS "nationwide" 5G, not this newer and faster flavor. https://t.co/JH1uTixZaI
— Eli Blumenthal (@eliblumenthal) March 10, 2021
I’m betting Verizon won’t stick to this policy over the long term. The new C-band spectrum is going to be extremely useful for Verizon when managing performance on its capacity-constrained network. If Verizon artificially limits C-band access to a minority of its customers, the company won’t be able to use the spectrum as efficiently as possible.
While I expect limiting C-band access will eventually become costly for Verizon, it’s not too costly yet. There are two main reasons:
The situation will change as more C-band spectrum is deployed and C-band compatibility becomes a standard feature on nearly all phones. As that happens, I expect Verizon will open up C-band access to almost all of its direct subscribers as well as subscribers with Verizon’s flanker brands and Verizon-powered MVNOs.
On Sunday, the following tweet was shared by the Twitter account for Verizon’s customer support:
Customers that follow this advice will effectively be turning off 5G service. People on Twitter were quick to dunk on Verizon for running a marketing campaign about the benefits of 5G while simultaneously suggesting that some subscribers might want to turn off 5G service.
By Monday, a bunch of tech journalists had picked up the story. While Verizon deleted its tweet, many competing carriers posted screenshots or linked to news stories about Verizon’s gaffe:
ICYMI (they deleted)💀 pic.twitter.com/mBJT5J3LDp
— T-Mobile (@TMobile) February 28, 2021
Instant regret is so Verizon.https://t.co/MfmOJ6aAG9
— MintMobile (@Mintmobile) March 4, 2021
Gizmodo ended its coverage of Verizon’s tweet with this line:
What’s going on? Verizon was being transparent. Verizon’s tweet had accurate and potentially useful information.
No one paying close attention to the cellular industry would be surprised that turning off 5G could preserve battery life. While a lot of hype about 5G has highlighted potential power savings, we’ve known that today’s 5G phones aren’t delivering on that potential. Here’s an excerpt from Samsung’s website:
Because your phone is connected to multiple networks simultaneously, the battery will drain faster than one would typically expect, and the phone may get warmer than when solely on 3G or LTE.
As the 5G networks grow in capacity and capability, they will be able to handle more of your phone’s functions with less battery drain.
While T-Mobile’s official Twitter account and multiple T-Mobile executives joined the internet pile on against Verizon, T-Mobile made similar suggestions on its own website:
Verizon’s customer support was doing something helpful when it let subscribers know about the potential downsides of 5G. I want to encourage rather than discourage that kind of information sharing.
I’m not exactly sure how journalists should strike a balance between calling out bullshit and disincentivizing information sharing. After watching this story play out, I’m inclined to be more thoughtful about the second-order effects of some of my critical takes.
T-Mobile has started bragging about having the best 5G speeds in Opensignal’s latest report. Here’s an excerpt from today’s press release from T-Mobile:
I’ve been critical of selection bias issues inherent in Opensignal’s methodology. I continue to think there are serious selection bias issues with Opensignal’s latest 5G metrics. Still, I don’t think my qualms are significant enough to dismiss T-Mobile’s apparent lead in 5G speeds and 5G coverage. T-Mobile is killing it. Here’s another bit from today’s press release:
Early in its 5G rollout, T-Mobile relied on low-frequency spectrum around 600MHz. While this spectrum was great for coverage, it had lousy speed potential. In 2020, T-Mobile put a lot of effort into bragging about how it led the nation in 5G coverage. While the bragging was technically accurate, the whole thing was bullshit in practical terms. 5G delivered with T-Mobile’s low-frequency spectrum was often slower than a typical 4G connection.
Recently, T-Mobile started rolling out large-scale 5G deployments using mid-band spectrum. T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G now covers about a third of Americans. Mid-band 5G actually delivers speeds that are substantially better than consumers are used to with 4G.
Verizon is still crushing the competition in terms of coverage with ultra-fast, millimeter wave 5G. However, Verizon’s achievements with millimeter wave don’t have much value for consumers yet. Even Verizon’s millimeter wave coverage is lackluster, and practical applications for ultra-fast cellular speeds are rare.
While I think T-Mobile legitimately holds the top spot for 5G coverage and average 5G speeds, I also think Verizon will overtake T-Mobile as 5G rollouts reach more mature stages. In my view, the interesting thing to watch will be whether T-Mobile or AT&T ends up with the second-place spot in the 5G competition.1 T-Mobile’s spectrum holdings and financial position may give the network a significant edge over AT&T.
For a while now, Verizon has offered a prepaid plan with unlimited minutes, texts, and data. Yesterday, Verizon Prepaid launched a second and more expensive unlimited plan. While the old plan had a base price of $65 per month, the new plan has a base price of $75 per month. Both plans are eligible for loyalty discounts and a discount for automatic payments. Together, discounts can decrease the monthly cost of either plan by up to $15 per month.
Verizon’s new plan includes two features that aren’t included with the old unlimited plan:
Verizon splits its 5G service into two buckets: 5G Nationwide and 5G Ultra Wideband. 5G Nationwide is Verizon’s widely available 5G service. While the 5G Nationwide coverage profile is solid, the speeds 5G Nationwide delivers are not especially impressive. 5G Ultra Wideband is outrageously fast, but the service has extremely limited availability.
All of Verizon’s prepaid plans give subscribers with compatible devices access to Verizon’s 5G Nationwide service. The new prepaid plan is the only one that offers 5G Ultra Wideband service. Given 5G Ultra Wideband’s terrible coverage, not many people will benefit from the added feature. I suppose the tiny minority of people that live or work where 5G Ultra Wideband is available might have a rationale for paying extra to get Verizon’s latest plan.
Verizon’s cheaper prepaid unlimited plan does not include mobile hotspot access by default. However, subscribers can add a 10GB per month hotspot allotment for an extra $5 each month. Subscribers on Verizon’s new unlimited plan will get a 10GB hotspot allotment at no extra charge. Additionally, subscribers on the new plan can use an unlimited amount of mobile hotspot data when connected to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network.
For most people, it will be hard to justify the extra $10 per month that Verizon’s new plan costs relative to Verizon Prepaid’s old unlimited plan. If you need hotspot access, I’d recommend just using the old plan with a $65 base price and adding the $5 per month hotspot feature.
In the off chance you happen to spend a lot of time covered by Verizon’s Ultra Wideband service, the more expensive plan might be justifiable. However, the choice still might not be a no-brainer. While Ultra Wideband delivers impressive speeds, it’s rare for consumers to see many real-world benefits from the added speeds. 4G LTE and 5G Nationwide deliver speeds that are sufficient for most people.
Earlier this week, Verizon announced a few planned expansions of its 5G services.
Starting January 14, Verizon’s 5G Home Internet will be available in parts of five more cities:
The service will be available in Phoenix, AZ starting January 28th.
Later this month, Verizon plans to bring Ultra Wideband 5G to parts of three more cities:
By my count, that will bring the total number of cities will Ultra Wideband coverage to 64.
In an earlier post about network operators’ plans for phasing out 3G, I wrote:
At one point, Verizon was saying it would mostly phase out its 3G network by the end of 2019. Later, Verizon pushed the deadline to the end of 2020. Today, Mike Dano of Light Reading reported that the deadline has been pushed back once more.
As of this moment, it’s unclear when Verizon will push 3G-only devices off the network. Activations for 3G-only devices continue be prohibited.
Verizon’s premium unlimited plans (Play More Unlimited, Do More Unlimited, and Get More Unlimited) come with 15-30GB monthly allotments of mobile hotspot data. The 15-30GB hotspot allowances only apply when using hotspot data through Verizon’s 4G LTE or 5G Nationwide service.
In July, I shared a post about Verizon’s rarely discussed policies for hotspot use with the network’s 5G Ultra Wideband service. At the time, subscribers on Verizon’s premium plans were allotted 50GB of full-speed, Ultra Wideband hotspot use each month. Verizon suggested it would throttle hotspot speeds to 3Mbps for subscribers that burned through their data allotments. Here’s a screenshot I pulled from Verizon’s website in July:
I no longer see that usage graphic in my Verizon dashboard. Instead, I see graphics like these:
As best as I can tell, Verizon no longer throttles heavy users of Ultra Wideband hotspot data. Reddit user albert1735 recently provided some corroboration. Yesterday, the user shared a video showing speed tests pulling several hundred megabits per second after over 70GB of hotspot use in a single month.
While there aren’t data caps or throttles for Ultra Wideband mobile hotspots at this time, I expect they’ll come back once Verizon’s 5G deployment is further along.