Verizon bullish on operator role in the metaverse

INTERVIEW: Rima Qureshi, EVP and CSO at Verizon, insisted it would be impossible for the metaverse concept to reach its full potential without the telecoms industry, underlining the importance of using 5G to enable a range of use cases in the digital world.

Speaking to Mobile World Live, Qureshi revealed the operator had held good discussions with partners about its future play in the area, bullishly stating that telecoms was in a very important position to enable the metaverse.

She explained operator networks were “absolutely essential” in the metaverse “if you do not want to be sitting tethered in your home”, which is only great “if you want one type of experience”.

“If you want an AR type of experience, you want to be walking around and you need to be able to do that over 5G.”

“You need to be able to get the kind of speed and throughput and data processing that you can only get from 5G.”

“So yes, I think you will see more use cases with 5G, but I think it is very early and we have a very important role.”

Due to the range of untapped use cases, Qureshi added the focus should only be on 5G and not on 6G at this stage.

In the interview, Qureshi also provided an update on Verizon’s 5G rollout, its spectrum strategy and progress on work in satellite with Amazon’s Project Kuiper.