5G Home Internet Won't Happen Until Later in 2020, Alas

It looks like we'll be waiting longer for 5G to become a competitive home broadband solution. The Verge today noted a Light Reading story I had missed, where Verizon exec Ronan Dunne punts a major rollout of 5G home internet to the second half of 2020.

The problem seems to be a lack of millimeter-wave home modems, which I've been noting recently are missing in action. In 2019, Qualcomm announced a new antenna chipset, which will really help Verizon stretch out its home 5G coverage, but we haven't seen any retail devices featuring that chip yet. We were hoping to see some at Mobile World Congress in February.

Currently, Verizon says it offers wireless home internet in five cities, most recently adding Chicago to a previous list of Sacramento, Los Angeles, Houston, and Indianapolis. It offers its millimeter-wave mobile 5G in 31 cities.

Checking at 200 N Jefferson St and 601 W Jackson Blvd in Chicago, both condo buildings where I know Verizon has 5G, it said I could sign up but only if I have windows that open and face a particular direction. The company said that as a new customer, I'd get service for free for three months and for $80/month after that.

But the company may only be taking new customers in Chicago. Checking at 640 E Michigan St and 2024 Woodlawn Avenue in Indianapolis, 5701 Schumacher Lane and 3720 W Alabama St in Houston, 4305 Alla Rd in Marina Del Rey, California, or 39 Navy Street and 52 Zephyr Court in Venice, California—all of which are shown as covered by 5G on Verizon's maps—the company's website said 5G Home was not available.

The news gets worse for people elsewhere who are dying for broadband competition; in the Light Reading story, Dunne says it may be as late as 2027 before Verizon covers even 23 percent of the US population with 5G Home.

That's much slower than Inseego CEO Dan Mondor's estimate last month of being "pretty well covered" with 5G by 2023. Of course, Mondor wasn't just talking about Verizon.

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T-Mobile to the Rescue?

T-Mobile has also talked about using 5G home internet as one of the selling points for its merger with Sprint. While T-Mobile doesn't have enough bandwidth to offer home internet by itself, if it merged with Sprint, it would gain a large amount of mid-band spectrum that would let it offer home service.

As part of its merger filings, T-Mobile said it would bring wireless home broadband to almost 90 percent of the US population by 2024, according to Fierce Wireless.

But T-Mobile's merger is still stuck in the courts, and Sprint has said that it has its own troubles getting equipment that can access all of its spectrum right now. The ability to use Sprint's entire spectrum portfolio is critical to T-Mobile offering affordable home service.