Joining in on the 5G buzzword of the year is going to be inevitable for most carriers around the world, and Google is no different. Today and in partnership with Sprint, the company announced that its Google Fi MVNO network will support 5G on compatible devices.

Sprint's 5G network is built on its mid-band 2.5GHz spectrum and Massive MIMO technology, and is able to achieve over 10x the speed of LTE and reduce latency. Its deployment is planned for the first half of 2019 starting in 9 cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix, and Washington D.C.

When it's rolled out to Sprint customers, Fi users will benefit from the same improvements and speeds, provided that they have a "Designed for Fi" phone that is compatible with Sprint 5G and that they're in a 5G-covered area. That's a lot of asterisks, but as with all things 5G, availability and deployment won't be anywhere near ubiquitous for at least a year or two.

PRESS RELEASE