Samsung’s 5G home router has been the first to win approval from the FCC, edging itself and Verizon into the lead, as the telco pushes forward with plans to launch commercial 5G services in late 2018.  

The certification, which you can see here, gives the green light for the Samsung indoor 5G router, after the FCC previously approved it’s access unit and outdoor 5G router. With all the right boxes now ticked, Samsung has the first ‘end-to-end system’ ready for commercial 5G, making use of the 28 GHz spectrum band. The approval is certainly good news for Verizon, which is planning to use the Samsung system to launch its 5G offering by the end of the year.  

“Our 5G deployment is progressing as planned,” said Verizon CFO Matthew Ellis during the company’s Q1 earnings call. “We are quickly approaching the initial launch of our residential broadband service later this year, which will be the first use case of a broader 5G strategy. We are driving the ecosystem for future growth across the entire array of 5G services.”