Verizon 5G Home Internet Review: Can It Handle Your Household Broadband Needs?

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Verizon 5G Home Internet rating

Pros

• No data caps or contracts
• Straightforward pricing
• Faster download speeds than other fixed wireless services

Cons

• Speeds are not guaranteed and can fluctuate
• Home customers are second priority to mobile users on the network
• Upload speeds are comparable to cable but fall short of fiber

Verizon 5G Home Internet review

If there’s anything we can learn about home internet from 2024, it’s the fact that wireless internet is quickly becoming a popular alternative to cable, fiber or DSL internet service. J.D. Power’s 2024 residential internet survey highlights the prominence of 5G internet in the fixed wireless internet category and T-Mobile and Verizon stood apart as the country’s biggest 5G internet providers.

With Verizon 5G Home Internet, you can expect straightforward plans and service terms. Your plans come without data caps, contracts or hidden fees. But as always, there’s more than what meets the eye, especially with a 5G internet connection. Let’s take a closer at Verizon’s home Internet service.

Wireless delivery allows providers like Verizon to expand quickly. It connects homes through a receiver that picks up Verizon’s cellular signal and broadcasts it as a Wi-Fi network. Since launching in 2018, Verizon’s 5G Home Internet availability has only surged.

In January 2022, Verizon unveiled its 5G Ultra Wideband network, effectively making Verizon 5G Home Internet available in 900 cities. According to its most recent 2024 quarterly report, Verizon now has over 4.2 million customers for 5G Home Internet, a 16% increase from the previous year.

In very select regions, including parts of Verizon’s coverage map, you’ll find 5G plans capable of hitting near-gigabit download speeds. That wide availability and high speeds make 5G especially interesting if you live in an area without high-speed cable or fiber internet access. With its straightforward pricing and service terms, there’s much to like about what Verizon is selling.

Verizon 5G Home Internet plans and pricing

It’s worth noting that all prices listed on this page reflect available discounts for setting up paperless billing. If you decide not to go with automatic monthly payments, your price will be higher.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

Like any fixed wireless provider, the speeds you’ll get with 5G home internet are variable. Depending on some factors like network congestion and proximity to a 5G cell tower, internet providers like Verizon can promise speeds “up to” a certain threshold but that’s not always a guaranteed speed.

Verizon offers two plans, each offering a different speed potential. The standard plan features max download speeds up to 50 to 300 megabits per second and up to 20Mbps in upload. You can find faster max speeds with the Home Plus plan, which ranges from 85 to 1,000Mbps in download (for select areas) and 50 to 75Mbps in upload.

The typical download speeds for each plan range from 50 to 85Mbps for the 5G Home plan and 85 to 250 for the 5G Home Plus plan. You may see faster typical speeds depending on usage, network congestion or proximity to a 5G cell tower. Verizon reports that 5G Home customers should get HD video streaming (1080p) capabilities while those with 5G Home Plus will experience 4K video streaming.

Even better, Verizon’s premium plan features a price lock for up to five years, and unlike many ISPs, equipment rental is already included in your monthly bill.

What’s the deal with Verizon 5G and Verizon 4G LTE?

Fixed wireless internet services don’t usually boast the fastest internet connection speeds, but it’s no wonder that millions of households turn to 5G home internet instead of the high prices and hassles of big internet providers. Fixed wireless connections are a practical option for rural areas and have decent prices for decent speeds. For context, Verizon’s 4G LTE home internet plan offers typical download speeds between 25Mbps to 50Mbps, with uploads in the single digits.

5G is much faster than that, and that’s because the standard’s millimeter-wave technology (aka mmWave) sends signals at much higher frequencies than LTE. Those higher frequencies can deliver gigabit speeds in the right circumstances, but the trade-off is that they don’t travel as far and can struggle with obstructions.

5G accounts for those high-speed range limitations by mixing slower mid- and low-band signals that travel farther for better coverage. On those frequencies, you can expect your 5G speeds to dip to around 300Mbps on midband or down to double-digit LTE levels on low-band. That’s why your 5G mileage will vary as far as speeds are concerned; it all comes down to your home’s location.

Who can get Verizon 5G Home Internet?

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Verizon 5G Home Internet is available in many places, but it’s mostly centered on America’s largest metro regions, where the development of 5G infrastructure is furthest along. That puts it on a similar (but much speedier) trajectory to fiber, with service primarily focused in America’s largest cities, where the population density makes expansion more cost-effective.

That said, deploying new cell towers and upgrading existing ones is generally faster than wiring entire regions for fiber, neighborhood by neighborhood. While availability is still somewhat limited, there’s room for hope that 5G might be able to bring faster home internet to underserved parts of the country faster than fiber, cable or other internet types.

Plug in your address to determine availability

Even if Verizon 5G Home Internet is available in your city, there’s no guarantee you can get it at your address. Service requires proximity to Verizon’s 5G cell towers and a strong, steady signal.

My former CNET colleague, for example, lived near downtown Louisville, Kentucky, where Verizon’s 5G Home Internet is an option for some. Verizon didn’t offer service at his address, even though he had a cell plan with Verizon and service that was strong enough for his phone to connect over 5G semi-regularly when he was at home.

Want to see whether Verizon 5G Home Internet is available at your household? Check out Verizon’s availability link and plug in your address.

Verizon 5G Home Internet’s simple service terms

Verizon’s terms are about as straightforward as you’ll find in the home internet market. The monthly rate includes all taxes and fees, and you won’t need to pay an additional equipment fee as you will with many providers.

Additionally, there are no service contracts, early termination fees or data caps. That means you can use your connection as much as you like without fearing overage charges for using too much data. On top of that, Verizon 5G Home Internet doesn’t come with a bait-and-switch promo rate, so your bill won’t arbitrarily jump after 12 months.

All of that is pretty appealing, and it matches what we see from T-Mobile and Starry, the other two names of note offering high-speed wireless home internet plans. Like Verizon, neither enforces contracts, data caps or equipment fees. That seems like a smart strategy for providers hoping to tempt customers into trying something new.

How does Verizon 5G Home Internet fare against competitors?

We mentioned T-Mobile and Starry, two other providers currently offering wireless home internet. AT&T was the notable absence here until recently. As of March 2024, AT&T rolled out its 5G home internet AT&T Internet Air, now available across 30 states and almost 100 markets. AT&T Internet Air advertises speeds between 75 to 225Mbps download and 10 to 30Mbps up for a monthly cost of $60, putting it on par with fixed wireless competitors.

As for T-Mobile and Starry, both providers offer appealingly straightforward terms, just as Verizon does, but the prices and speeds are different. For example, consider Verizon 5G Home vs. T-Mobile Home Internet. T-Mobile uses a mix of 5G and 4G LTE signals and offers three speeds (between 72 to 245Mbps and up to 133 to 415Mbps download) for $50 to $70 monthly.

Starry is more impressive, as $45 a month gets you download speeds of up to 300Mbps and upload speeds of 50Mbps. That makes it the only wireless internet provider with speeds at the higher end at a value of just 15 cents per Mbps.

As for each company’s coverage map, T-Mobile offers the most availability, with cellular internet service currently available to more than 50 million households across the US. Verizon now offers 5G home internet service to over 40 million households and targets 50 million by 2025. Starry is the smallest provider of the three and is available only in five cities: Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington DC.

Perks and promotions with Verizon 5G Home Internet

Remember how we mentioned that 5G home internet providers are trying to lure customers from other ISPs? That’s certainly the case with Verizon. The company currently offers many sweeteners for anyone thinking about making the switch.

If your provider charges an early termination fee for ditching it before your contract ends, Verizon will cover that cost when you switch (up to $500). On top of that, new Verizon 5G Home Internet customers get a 30-day satisfaction guarantee: If you’re not happy with your service, you can get a full refund.

Both plans include a five-year price guarantee. Verizon 5G Home Plus customers will also score Netflix and Max (with ads) free for one year. Check out CNET’s best internet deals for the latest deals from Verizon and other providers.

Bundling with mobile nets nice savings

Are you already a Verizon mobile customer? Those with select 5G phone plans can snag an additional $25 to $35 off their monthly bill when combining their cellphone plan with Verizon 5G Home Internet. That’s a nice incentive to give Verizon a try.

Even without that discount, Verizon could offer solid value if your average speeds are high enough. It’s difficult to say with such a wide range of possibilities. With Starry, $40 a month for speeds of 200Mbps comes to about 20 cents per Mbps. With T-Mobile, your average cost per Mbps would be approximately 20 cents, assuming you’re routinely hitting those maximum speeds of 245Mbps.

As for Verizon, the company says that 5G Home customers should typically expect downloads between 50Mbps and 300Mbps. If your average is 193Mbps, you’re paying about 25 cents per Mbps monthly. If you have a strong connection and average download speeds are closer to 300Mbps, that cost per Mbps falls to 17 cents. If the connection is weak and your average is around 85Mbps, the number shoots up to 59 cents. As we said, your mileage may vary.

If you opt for 5G Home Plus, your monthly figures will be slightly different: Verizon’s figures come out to 11 cents per Mbps for average speeds at 650Mbps, 26 cents at 300Mbps and 7 cents at 1,000Mbps. Those numbers dip even lower if you apply the Verizon mobile plan discount.

That stacks up pretty well with the top cable providers, who typically charge at least 32 cents per Mbps. Fiber still offers the best value, with most plans typically coming in around 17 cents per Mbps. If there’s a choice between fiber and 5G, we’ll often lean toward fiber.

What’s the bottom line on Verizon 5G Home Internet?

On paper, there’s not much to criticize. Verizon 5G Home Internet offers some genuinely outstanding terms, and the download speeds could potentially match what you’d expect from cable or fiber. Don’t forget that Verizon is consistently ranked as a top ISP for customer satisfaction by organizations like the American Customer Satisfaction Index and J.D. Power. We wish the uploads were faster than 20 to 75Mbps, especially given that Starry promises uploads as high as 250Mbps, but that might also indicate that there’s room for Verizon to improve over time as its 5G network expands.

That expansion of 5G infrastructure will be key to bringing availability to more people and strengthening the signal for Verizon’s existing customers. If Verizon can continue growing its service map at a fast clip, and its simple, straightforward pricing proves popular, Verizon’s 5G Home Internet service might be a game-changer.

Verizon 5G Home Internet FAQs