Verizon Wireless has been bullish on “5G” with plans to trial the unstandardized technology this year. Ever since Verizon Wireless announced those plans late last year, T-Mobile US executives, who are also taking on 5G, have made clear their skepticism.
That trend held this week as T-Mobile US CFO Braxton Carter discussed the topic during the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media and Telecom Conference. Carter used the platform to discuss T-Mobile US’ spectrum holdings at length, and also pointed out the company, owned by German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom, has aggressively moved both data and voice transmission to its LTE network.
“We’re substantially ahead of every national carrier in the penetration of [voice over LTE] in the marketplace,” Carter said, which is an important step in moving away from legacy network technology and refarming precious spectrum assets.
From there, Carter postulated Verizon Wireless is so keen on 5G because data use is straining its LTE network.
“I think the answer is that Verizon continues to see massive increases in data consumption on their network, primarily driven by video,” the exec said.
Carter also commented on the risk associated with commercializing technology that hasn’t been standardized, essentially breaking down that if a carrier deploys prestandardization, the carrier runs the risk of needing to redeploy or become an outlier if the standard turns out differently than expected.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘why are you pushing so quick that it’s going to end up costing you much more in the long run?'” Carter said.
During the carrier’s fourth quarter 2015 earnings call, T-Mobile US CTO Neville Ray, commenting on Verizon Wireless’ moves around 5G, said: “They’re under so much pressure from us from a network perspective … losing the LTE game very, very quickly. I think folks have seen some of the early announcements and Verizon trying to move and say that they’re going to be the first to 5G, when it’s kind of BS, to be honest.”
