Verizon has now made its 5G experience a little bit more user-friendly thanks to support for uploads. While Verizon has offered 5G in select cities for some time, that’s not to say the experience was universally the same, with downloads having been the priority in the past. That hasn’t strictly changed with the emphasis still on downloads, but this will make some difference in bridging the gap.

While 5G has its criticism, and conspiracies linking it to the COVID-19 outbreak, the next-generation wireless technology has still been slowly rolling out in various locations. In Verizon’s case, its 5G network is available in 34 different cities in the United States. Although that’s still some way away from nationwide coverage, even those 5G-supported services were not getting a balanced 5G experience.

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Verizon has announced a number of ways it is now improving its 5G experience in currently supported locations, with one of the most important from the user experience being the introduction of 5G uploads. Up until now, users in a 5G area might have been able to download over 5G, but uploading over the network remained stuck on 4G LTE. That's what is now changing with Verizon conforming that 5G uploads are going live in all 34 cities. In fact, the announcement states “all 35 Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband cities,” with San Diego set to become the 35th city to be lit up by Verizon’s 5G on May 28.

Why 5G Uploads Matter

5G Landscape

With all the talk of 5G recently, it is sometimes easy to forget that networks are a two-way process. While having faster download speeds or wider capacity makes it better for watching a Netflix video or receiving someone’s face in higher resolution during a Zoom call, that’s only half of the connection story. With 5G upload speeds now supported, Verizon customers can expect an upgrade in the content they want to contribute to the internet. Whether that’s uploading videos to social media, live-streaming, taking part in a Zoom video call, or even playing massively-multiplayer games, they can now expect a richer experience overall.

However, it is worth noting that even with the improvements Verizon is now touting, this change is still not placing uploads on equal-footing with downloads. For example, and although no firm numbers were provided, Verizon says customers can expect “upload speeds on 5G about 30 percent faster than 4G LTE.” That’s significantly less than what most people will assume 5G offers, and even what 5G downloads are already capable of. Still, any improvement to the upload support is going to be of benefit and especially at a time when more people are at home, online, and uploading more content to the internet than ever before.

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Source: Verizon