Oliver Haslam on May 17, 2019, 8:00 am

Verizon 5G Hits Insane Download Speeds In New Speed Test

After a less-than-amazing start to life, Verizon’s 5G network is starting to take shape and it just so happens to coincide with the arrival of Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G. The phone was taken to Chicago by The Verge, and the 5G tests they carried out where pretty impressive, to say the least.

While 5G coverage is still spotty, when you do get a signal, 5G speeds are undoubtedly quick. In fact, the tests were able to yield speed tests of around 1Gbps, which is mind-boggling no matter how you slice it.

Going over 700Mbps is very typical, and crossing that gigabit marker can happen regularly if you’re standing near one of the carrier’s 5G nodes, which utilize millimeter wave technology to achieve the faster download rates.

I’m still walking around Chicago and testing things out, but here are a few quick tests I ran:

The pilot episode of The Office downloaded from Netflix at “high” quality in eight seconds. That’s not a typo.

I pulled down Marvel’s Iron Man 2 from the Amazon Prime Video app at “best” quality in 90 seconds.

Both of those speeds are way quicker than anything that would be needed to successfully stream the content, but the fact it’s even possible is pretty amazing in our eyes. It’s going to take some time before 5G is available for most people, and picking up a $1400 phone to be able to take advantage of it isn’t something most people are going to go for. But when 5G does become more mainstream, and even mid-range phones start to support it, things could be very interesting indeed.

We’re still more than happy with our solid 4G speeds, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be rushing to test 5G when we’re given the opportunity.

(Source: The Verge)