Verizon Announces Third City to Receive 5G Service This Year

Verizon on Tuesday announced the third city that will be receiving a 5G technology rollout in the second half of 2018.

The carrier will launch 5G service in Houston later this year, it announced in a blog post. Verizon cited its “long-standing relationship” with the city, as well as area citizens and first responders, as a reason for 5G deployment.

The Texas city will be joining Sacramento and Los Angeles as part of the carrier’s “four market deployment plan,” which will be focused on residential 5G broadband service.

The fourth market has yet to be announced.

5G technology is largely expected to revolutionize the way we use computers and other devices. It could lead to faster development of everything from self-driving vehicles to entire “smart cities.” In its blog post, Verizon touted the potential for 5G to foster “unprecedented innovation.”

And Verizon isn’t the only carrier to have announced its initial 5G rollout plans.

Over the past few months, AT&T said it will launch 5G service in 12 cities across the U.S. later this year, including Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas and Waco, Texas; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Sprint, for its part, says it will roll out 5G in L.A., Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. later this year.

T-Mobile said 30 U.S. cities will be “5G ready” by the end of the year. The Uncarrier also announced plans to rollout coast-to-coast 5G networks by 2020.

Currently, there aren’t any devices on the market that support currently 5G technology. That’s looking to be the case even when 5G service begins rolling out later this year. For example, this year’s iPhone lineup won’t implement support for the faster internet service. (Rumors indicate iPhones could get 5G service by 2020.)

Despite that, carriers are currently toying with the idea of releasing portable 5G hotspots that will let users take advantage of the new broadband technology before 5G-compatible devices are launched, Bloomberg reported in February.