Category: Internet

For the past 18 months, all of my work-from-home and personal Internet use has been going over the Verizon 5G ultra-wideband network. And I really haven’t noticed any change at all compared to my traditional cable-based ISP (Cox).

Well, that’s not entirely true. I have noticed the difference in my bank account. I was paying about $110 a month for cable Internet, but this new Verizon 5G home Internet only costs about $25 a month (now, it is either $35 or $45 per month). When I signed up, it happened to come with a $25-a-month bill credit for the home internet service plus two phone lines. It may be more accurate to say it is free.

Service

When I first received the wireless modem router, I unboxed it and set it up. It didn’t quite work. I ran into numerous problems trying to activate it on the Verizon network. I don’t know what was wrong. I called Verizon and worked with them, and after a few days of leaving it alone (not at their direction, I was busy with other things), it was online.

The box is a small, white box that plugs into power, and that is it. It offers WiFi and a web-based management interface. It has two ethernet ports on the back if you want a hardwired connection. I used these to connect to my Asus Mesh WiFi routers, which switched into AP mode so that all my devices are on one big network, regardless of what WiFi network they connect to. [As a side note, I also used the opportunity to buy some MoCA adapters, which are much faster and more reliable than previously, so I could hard-wire the backhaul between the Verizon router and the two mesh nodes.]

Within the first few months, I had a few hiccups where the device would randomly reboot itself. Most of the time, it wasn’t an issue because it would be back online within two or three minutes — except for one occasion during a Teams call with my boss. Go figure.

After that, however, the service has been nearly flawless. Since I cut the cord from Cox and switched to Verizon 5G home Internet as my only Internet service provider, I’ve had one time where the modem rebooted itself during the daytime when we were using it.

Speeds

My service level is 300 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. I have yet to notice when I’m getting noticeably slower speeds. It is to my advantage that I live about 600′ away from a Verizon tower. And while I would like faster speeds, getting the promised speeds almost always means I’m not having any issues with slow downloads or buffering. I only noticed that my speeds were slower than cable when I downloaded a big software update from Microsoft or Apple. Otherwise, it is smooth sailing – Teams meeting after meeting, Bluey episode after Bluey episode.

Verizon can deliver these sorts of speeds on a day-in-day-out basis because of the new spectrum acquired in the C-Band auction. The final tranche of that spectrum was released in August 2023, and Verizon and AT&T were able to unlock huge chunks of spectrum to provide users with high speeds.

The best part is that Verizon 5G Home service doesn’t have any monthly transfer caps or penalties for data overages. Before I cut the cable cord, I was subject to a 1.25TB/mo data cap, and it would be $50/mo additionally to have “unlimited” data.

Tech Support

The good news is that besides the initial setup, I have not needed any support from Verizon. Speeds are strong, and the service is reliable.

Price

As I mentioned above, I’m paying $25 per month, and with a $25 bill credit, it is effectively free. The bill credit will run out after two years, and there is a price lock guarantee. It is hard to beat the value per dollar. Right now, I believe the same service as a new customer would cost $35 or $45.

Some users may be able to access higher speeds if they live near a tower enabled with mmWave equipment (speeds closer to 1Gbps).

Bottom Line

If you live near a Verizon 5G tower with C-Band spectrum deployed and you get good speeds on your Verizon 5G C-Band enabled phone, check it out and see if your location qualifies and toss that overpriced cable service. I strongly recommend the service if you can get it and have good signal. Given the current service level and pricing, I won’t be leaving my Verizon 5G Home internet until the Fiber-to-the-Home salesman comes knocking on my door.

The core problem at the center of today’s broadband debate: laying down fiber, or even hybrid fiber/coax or 75Mbps DSL, to everyone’s house is extremely capital intensive. It leads to mono/duopoly conditions because the more competitors in the market equals more ways you split revenue pie equals marginal investment is less attractive.

So what do we do? We can heavily regulate these monopolies/duopoly (Title II) but that doesn’t fix the lack of competition. Prices will still be high because you only have one or two companies providing “Broadband” (25/3) in a given geographical area. There is no incentive to price compete when there will never be new entrants & no substitute products (wireless broadband wont cut it). So we’ll be stuck with high priced broadband that doesn’t block Netflix, that’s OK for now, but doesn’t address long term competitive issues.

We could let local PUC/Corporation Commissions regulate price for broadband, same way they do investor-owned utilities. But lets step back and look at this from a least-regulation position. Mono/duopolies shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever they want. So lets try and get rid of the fact they’re monopolies in the first place.

How do we increase competition? Government can’t force laborers to work cheaper to install the fiber, nor can they make the materials cheaper, so capital costs remain high. If we force companies like Comcast or Verizon (I-ISPs) to open up their lines to competitors (C-ISPs), it will never be an even field. Comcast or Verizon will always slant things to benefit them, in pricing or response time to fix issues, and run C-ISPs out of business. You think Comcast treats their own customers bad now? Imagine being a customer of a C-ISP using Comcast’s pipes.

We need a company to lay fiber that will resell transport but not compete with its customers (the C-ISPs). A municipal agency (govt) that owns the fiber and maintains it would be a good option. Better than your city/county maintaining roads because its a dedicated agency and the money coming in from the C-ISPs stays in the agency for upgrades and improvements (the digital highway trust fund cannot be raided to pay for other things). Limited scope by govt charter, regulated by the state to prevent scope creep. One mission, one goal of building 21st century roads. The agency has a fee structure for (flat + per Mbit + per Mbit/sec) companies who want to sell access. Companies are free to add value (alarm systems, television, phone, etc.). The net neutrality issues go away because of the high degree of competition – if company A slows down Netflix, switch to B, C, D or E.

If we put this plan in motion, existing ISPs try to run other companies out of business. We need regulatory help to prevent that. The optics get difficult, “XXXX is responsible for your higher bills!” they’ll say, but ultimately its to prevent anti-competitive behavior by the large incumbents. Without it, incumbents will wage a price war longer than the government and the competitive ISPs can sustain, which would spell doom for the entire program.

Initially announced in October 2013, Centurylink Las Vegas announced they were bringing Gigabit internet speeds to the Las Vegas area (FTTP, or fiber to the premises). All the politicians were happy to announce what a great thing it was for our city to make us part of the “21st Century”.

The problem though, is that its simply “Fiber to the Press Release“, a token effort designed to keep competitors away (like Google Fiber or a municipal fiber effort). The problem is that there are no build-out deadlines, rather they’re simply upgrading their infrastructure to the richest, most profitable customers, further enhancing the digital divide between the haves and have-nots.

Centurylink has announced approximately 40 subdivisions (about 20 initially in December 2013, and 20 more in spring 2014, plus a recent announcement of availability to select businesses) that will be enhanced with FTTP, which is approximately 5,000 single-family homes using a generous estimate of 125 homes per subdivision. At this rate of 5,000 single family homes per year, it will take CenturyLink 80-100 years to provide fiber to the home for all 400,000 to 500,000 single-family homes in southern Nevada, and thats even making the assumption that all new subdivisions built moving forward are built with FTTP.

There is no reasonable mind that thinks 80-100 years is an acceptable time frame to wire up a city with Gigabit Internet. The politicians or the PUC of Nevada need to force Centurylink to move faster in wiring up homes with gigabit speeds.