5G Experience Labs bring 5G to life with hands-on access

On the heels of Verizon’s 5G Home launch last month, the company’s giving people in its four 5G Home markets a chance to see for themselves how 5G will change their worlds.

Verizon opened the doors to its first two 5G Experience Labs in Sacramento and Indianapolis on Monday and will open 5G Experience Labs in Houston and Los Angeles on December 3. These cities are the first in the world to get 5G commercial service and now residents are getting the first glimpse of the newest and hottest technology on the planet.

For an entire week, the company’s welcoming people to see what 5G Home service is all about and get a first-hand look at future use cases. It’s an opportunity for them to try 5G before they decide to buy 5G. These 5G Experience Labs are located in areas where Verizon currently offers 5G Home service.

Visitors can experience how 5G will impact entertainment, sports, gaming and home internet service with a host of cool demonstrations. People looking to cut the cord can get an up close and personal look at 5G Home internet service in action. Sitting on a couch in a mock living room, visitors can see how the modem delivers on the connective power of 5G as it streams heavy content across a 4K TV and multiple devices at super-fast speeds with low latency. 5G Home is providing an alternative to current wired internet service that many people historically have gotten from their cable providers.

Another cool demo: The “5G First Man” experience that lets people walk in the shoes of Neil Armstrong as he takes off and lands on the moon. Sitting in a Positron chair and wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset, individuals can see, hear and feel what it was like to ride in the Lunar Capsule as it rocketed to the moon. 5G experiences like this one developed by RYOT, Positron and Verizon will eventually revolutionize home entertainment and cinema taking it from a two-dimensional experience to a fully immersive, four-dimensional one.

Sports fan can put their skills to the test with a demonstration of 5G VR Basketball. Wearing a VR blackout headset, you can shoot hoops without seeing the actual hoop by using the live video streaming power and low latency of 5G. Earlier this year, Verizon brought a similar experience to two NBA All-Star players with 5G-powered first-person goggles that had video cameras attached for some shooting practice. This type of simulation provided by Verizon and Ericsson will ultimately enable players to train virtually without needing to actually be physically present at practice.

Gamers should get ready for a high-end gaming experience on their smart phones thanks to 5G. While today, many popular games can’t be played smoothly on mobile devices because the gameplay requires faster connection speeds, when you throw 5G into the mix, you have the potential for multiplayer games that people have grown to expect only on PCs and consoles. Teaming with LiquidSky, Verizon’s letting visitors play a game on a mobile device connected to a video game controller wirelessly with practically zero lag. While some hard core gamers may be skeptics, 5G will eventually move gaming from consoles and PCs to mobile devices while streaming gaming content from the cloud.

Each 5G showcase is powered by Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network - the world’s first and only network to combine large spectrum holdings, end-to-end deep fiber resources and large numbers of small cells – the critical pieces needed to deliver the super-fast download speeds, massive bandwidth and low latency of 5G.

If you’re in Sacramento this week, swing by the 5G Experience Lab located at 500 J Street Suite 130-135. In Indianapolis, you can check out the lab located at 303-307 South Delaware Street. The labs are open from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. local time.

To find out if your home is 5G ready, visit FirstOn5G.com.