Verizon Determined to Be First to Bring 5G to US, Executive Says
The move to 5G is a “big priority” for Verizon, with 5G to be available to subscribers in some form in 2017, Senior Vice President Kathy Grillo said in an appearance on C-SPAN’s The Communicators televised last weekend. Among the 5G use cases are fixed broadband connections for the carrier's residential subscribers, said Grillo, who runs the company's Washington office. “We’re still in the early stages.”
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“The use cases are still being tested,” Grillo said. “We’re actually running field tests.” Questions remain about how 5G will perform in different environments and the real-world use of high-frequency spectrum, she said. “We’re determined to have a product in the market sometime next year, which is two to three years sooner than conventional wisdom actually has assumed.” Verizon “led the way” on 4G and “we want to maintain that leadership,” Grillo said. Verizon wants to be the first to deploy 5G in the U.S., “and I think we will be,” she said. “We’re moving very quickly.”
The FCC also seems determined to move quickly, Grillo said, noting the spectrum frontiers order set for a vote next week (see 1606240026). “We haven’t seen all of the details,” she said. “After July 14th, the gates will be open and we’ll be ready to go.” Newly developed beam-forming antennas make the high-frequency bands more usable, she said. “That’s the kind of thing that we’re testing in our field trials.” Early deployments likely will be in more densely populated urban areas, she said.
Verizon believes Congress must update the Communications Act, Grillo said. “We have an act that just isn’t really applicable today.” The FCC will have problems “year after year” unless the laws are updated, she said. “I think eventually it’s going to be inevitable that we will have a rewrite,” but when is hard to predict, she said.
FCC-proposed privacy rules are unfair to ISPs, Grillo said. Verizon bought AOL, in part, to have a platform on which to build in the digital advertising market, she said. “We’re trying to build on that investment and become more of a player in that market,” she said. “But the FCC’s rules would apply a really strict … set of requirements to essentially the new entrants in that space, rather than the big players.” Grillo said she's hopeful the FCC will rethink the privacy proposal, especially due to concerns raised by the FTC and other commenters (see 1606020062).
Verizon has a privacy policy that covers how it uses data, Grillo said. The "line-drawing exercise” the FCC is engaged in, “trying to figure out where do we give customers notice and ask their opt-out, when do we actually want them to affirmatively consent to our use of that information, we’ve had to make those calls too over the years,” she said. Verizon spends a lot of time thinking about privacy, she said. “We have a lot of different businesses; we have consumers who are concerned about these things.” Customers really do read Verizon’s privacy policy, Grillo said. “We spend a lot of time trying to make sure that we explain our privacy policy in a way that is understandable to people.”