LOS ANGELES - As I stood outside the entrance to the arena, home of the Los Angeles Lakers, my phone was showing download speeds worthy of a Magic Johnson-led fast break. My download speeds averaged several hundred megabytes per second and topped out at almost 1.6 gigabytes, enough to finally deliver on 5G's promise of faster data and lower latency.

Unfortunately, these speeds were not on a real network that anyone could access. Rather, it was on a test cell phone provided by Verizon that connected to a test network using Verizon's C-band spectrum. This was to see what the C-band could do in terms of both range and performance when Verizon switched on the next stage of its growing 5G network.

And what did I see? A very fast network.

More importantly, I saw how far Verizon's 5G network has evolved since Verizon switched on its first commercial 5G network over two years ago. in 2019, I rushed to Chicago to see Verizon's first 5G built with millimeter wave (mmWave) technology. I saw one of the facilities. The speeds then were certainly faster than the LTE connections that nearly everyone was using, but they were inconsistent and limited to block-by-block reach.

The test network I experimented with this week extends over a larger area and offers faster speeds. Consider this Verizon's challenge to T-Mobile, which currently offers the most extensive 5G network according to third-party testing firms, and also tops many 5G speed rankings.

Verizon believes that is about to change; it will cover 100 million customers in the C-band spectrum by the end of March 2022. (Over the next few years, that number will grow to 240 million as Verizon seeks to augment its existing 5G network.

This is an ambitious goal, and if you have a 5G phone that also operates in the C-band frequency band, faster communication may be in your very near future. Below is what I have experienced in testing and what Verizon's efforts mean for future performance.

To build a 5G network, carriers need to use different types of radio frequencies to provide the kind of performance and availability that customers expect T-Mobile to launch its first nationwide 5G network in late 2019, It has had much success so far in using low-band spectrum.

T-Mobile's speeds at the time were not as fast as what other carriers were offering with 5G, but they were able to reach a wider range of people; T-Mobile's current 5G coverage can reach over 300 million people. Even better, T-Mobile has used the mid-band spectrum it acquired in its merger with Sprint to enhance speeds, making faster ultra-capacity service available to 200 million people.

Verizon took a different approach, starting with mmWave, which offers the fastest speeds. However, mmWave's signal range is limited, and one must typically be near a tower to take advantage of the high speeds. mmWave's signal cannot go around obstacles such as windows or buildings (as Verizon has done in many arenas and other high-capacity venues), so nodes It is nearly impossible to get mmWave speeds indoors unless they are installed.

As of this writing, Verizon's mmWave-based 5G service has reached parts of 87 cities, and its slower national network covers about 230 million people.

The C-band offers Verizon an opportunity to combine greater reach with faster speeds. In an FCC auction this spring, Verizon won most of the available C-band spectrum in an effort to expand its 5G services.

"We couldn't be happier with the combination of low, medium, and C-band spectrum," Adam Keppe, Verizon's senior vice president of technical planning, told reporters attending a test session in Los Angeles this week.

As a test site for C-Band, Verizon could not have picked a better location than the LA Live entertainment district in downtown Los Angeles. The site is sandwiched between the Microsoft Theater and the former Staples Center (now ridiculously named after a cryptocurrency), where the Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, and Los Angeles Kings play their home games.

It's the kind of place where people regularly gather and outdoor events are the norm. Right now, an ice rink is set up for people who want to experience the holiday magic. In other words, it is the kind of area that attracts a lot of smartphone-carrying people who might demand faster download and upload speeds.

Equally important, this is in stark contrast to early mmWave deployments like the one Verizon was doing two years ago to get its 5G network off the ground. Back then, mmWave nodes brought high-speed communications to street corners and intersections.

Verizon's C-band setup at L.A. Live had wide reach, and I enjoyed the fastest downloads in front of the basketball arena even though the tower was across the busy street. My limited test time did not allow me to see how far it would reach, but this setup would probably reach a few blocks away. Not to mention much more extensive than what I experienced with Verizon's mmWave service.

That said, there are still some inconsistencies in performance: the download speed measured by Ookla's Speedtest app was 289 Mbps. Then, when I crossed the street and stood by the statue of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the speed improved to 841 Mbps.

The reason for this disparity. One of Verizon's network gurus thought that I was too close to the structure where the C-band hub was located, and that the signal was reaching me at an angle that was less than optimal for my phone. The fact that the further I moved away from the structure, the faster the speed improved, seemed to support that theory.

One of the most striking results occurred when I launched Speedtest on my personal iPhone 11 Pro Max connected to Verizon's LTE network. My iPhone achieved the highest download speed of 34.9 Mbps. At the same location, a 5G Verizon device, riding the carrier's C-band, exceeded 1 Gbps. If you are reluctant to upgrade to a 5G phone because you are not seeing the promised performance gains, Verizon's C-band is ready to change your mind.

Verizon showed off not only faster downloads, but other examples of what this speed means. I was able to try out a filter on Snapchat, which I found to be a great way to get a better experience. This filter allows you to mimic the powers of Marvel's Doctor Strange by making flaming circles appear and multiply into dozens of versions of yourself. This is the kind of demanding data task that only works at the low latency and high speeds offered by millimeter-wave-based 5G and the current C-band. (Similarly, another app allowed me to see the Phoenix Suns arena live from about 375 miles away. Impressive.

Not everyone is enthused about the C-band. The aviation industry and the Federal Aviation Administration fear that the C-band will interfere with the safety systems of some aircraft. Verizon and AT&T, which acquired the C-band spectrum in an auction this spring, agreed this month not to launch C-band, but Verizon has said it plans to meet its goal of covering 100 million customers with 5G in the C-band by the end of March.

There are already cell phones that will immediately enjoy faster speeds if Verizon makes the switch. Both the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 models are C-Band compatible, and so are the Samsung Galaxy S21, Galaxy Z Fold 3, and Galaxy Z Flip 3, a Verizon executive told me. (A Verizon spokesperson later added that other handset makers' 5G phones will also operate on C-Band at launch.) One can imagine that Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S22 flagship might also join this list when it arrives in early 2022.

For many smartphone owners, the move to 5G doesn't feel like a big change, given how modest the gains in data speeds have been; technologies like C-band and T-Mobile's ongoing efforts to increase speeds with its own ultra-capacity 5G will change that. And 2022 is already shaping up to be a big year for wireless connectivity.