Verizon will expand its 5G C-band network to more rural areas this year

During its quarterly earnings call earlier today, Verizon announced plans to expand its 5G C-band coverage to more rural and suburban areas by the end of this year.

While it’s unclear which specific markets should expect to see a C-band upgrade, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg noted that so far 5G C-band coverage has been rolled out. in 70 of the 406 available markets. This leaves 330 people still waiting, and some of them will certainly be lucky before 2024.

Unfortunately, Vestberg didn’t say how many of the 330 still-unserved markets will get C-band coverage this year, but he did at least confirm that the majority of upcoming rollouts will focus on suburban and rural areas.

Verizon spent $45.4 billion acquiring C-band spectrum licenses at an FCC auction in 2021, and it secured between 140 and 200 MHz of spectrum in all 406 U.S. markets. Sure, that’s a lot of the spectrum, and the operator has been slowly but steadily rolling out access to it ever since, but it’s certainly not a lightning-fast rollout since most of the spectrum licensed was already in use and requires clearance before reassignment.

Ultimately, Verizon will be able to serve over 250 million people with C-band spectrum, which is truly impressive. Concluding the rollout, however, may require waiting until 2024 and beyond.

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