Verizon plugs its 5G in London

The US and UK might not be on the best of terms at the moment, but Verizon has opened a London office to demo its 5G goods and draw attention from international customers.

After opening 5G development labs across the US and signing 5G/MEC partnership with with América Móvil, KT, Rogers, Telstra and Vodafone, Verizon is continuing to expand its remit with the new office in Holborn, central London.

“Verizon has proven expertise in delivering 5G in the US,” said Tami Erwin, Group CEO of Verizon Business. “One of the best ways of unleashing the true possibilities of 5G is getting it into the hands of innovators and visionaries. Our London facility enables our international customers to benefit from this expertise as they look to deploy 5G-enabled applications and experiences.”

The lab itself it not only geared towards engaging international customers, but also spreading its wings to develop its own ecosystem system in new markets. The aim will be to enable co-creation for new software services and hardware products in such areas as autonomous vehicles, smart communities, virtual healthcare, smart manufacturing, the industrial Internet of Things, immersive education, augmented and virtual reality and responsive gaming.

Alongside the 5G lab, the team will also open a production studio in April, where Verizon Media’s owned and operated brands, as well as partners, can create the content of tomorrow. This content could be 3D, focused on virtual reality, or hologram-based, though the objective is to create new ideas through combining technologies such as volumetric capture, motion capture and AR broadcast, with the speed and power of 5G.

“The new London studio represents our continued commitment to give our consumers access to premium next-generation experiential content across our global ecosystem of brands,” said Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan.

“As we move from a 2D world into a world that includes 3D content, Verizon Media is providing our publishers and advertisers access to a cutting-edge technology platform, giving them the ability to experiment with 5G, and providing the means to distribute them at