Verizon fios availability map

Verizon has launched 5G wireless home-internet service in Philadelphia. It’s not available to all city residents because of where the company has placed small cell towers on telephone poles and city property.

But it is competing with Comcast Corp.’s Xfinity service.

To qualify for a discounted price of $25 a month with Verizon, a new customer must subscribe to a Verizon unlimited mobile plan.

Verizon fios philadelphia

Otherwise the price is $50 a month.

5G wireless to homes is the latest battleground between telecom and cable companies. Mobile phone companies have invested in wireless spectrum and small cells to expand high-speed internet services to residences, competing with cable companies that dominate the internet-to-home market with wires.

Comcast’s network is available to 60 million businesses and homes, and it has signed about 32 million to its internet services.

Earlier this year Comcast reported its first-ever decline of residential internet customers, a loss of 10,000 connections in the company’s second quarter.

Comcast executives attributed some of that loss to new 5G wireless competition i