Verizon CEO predicts 5G phone battery utopia

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam teased a 5G future in which consumers will only have to charge their mobile phones once per month.

Speaking at IBM’s Think 2018 conference, McAdam noted 5G will not only bring exponentially faster speeds, but also drastically lower latency. He explained the latter will allow computing power to be moved off devices and on to the edge of the network, opening the door for devices to become thinner and have much longer battery life.

Specifically, McAdam said 5G will offer battery life of ten years for IoT devices and slash the daily need for smartphone charging to once every four weeks.

Geoff Blaber, a mobile analyst for CCS Insight, on Twitter called the comments “by far the most optimistic” vision of 5G he’s heard thus far. Blaber warned the “industry is setting worryingly lofty expectations”.

This isn’t the first time Verizon was accused of setting the bar too high on 5G. The operator kicked off its 5G hype cycle in 2015 with a promise to begin commercial deployments in 2017. Verizon was forced to push back the date, and announced plans to roll out pre-standard fixed-wireless 5G in three to five markets by the end of this year.