Verizon Communications CEO Hans Vestberg has indicated that the telco has paused its ‘5G Home’ fixed-wireless network deployment, a process which is unlikely to resume until standardised 5G customer premises equipment (CPE) emerges. In a conference call with analysts to discuss the company’s 4Q18 earnings, the executive noted that 5G Home was ‘fully deployed in the four cities we have decided’, adding ‘we expect this year we’ll see CPE hardware for the standard in the second half of 2019’. Instead, the development of 5G smartphones is said to be a priority for Verizon, with Motorola and Samsung named as handset partners.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, Verizon’s 5G Home fixed-wireless service went live on 1 October 2018 in selected parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento. While industry standards body 3GPP has yet to certify 5G technology for use in hardware, software, chipsets and devices – that milestone is expected to occur in Release 16 – Verizon argued that the new network adheres to its own 5G TF (Technical Forum) proprietary standard.