As of early July 2019, four of the major US mobile phone companies are offering 5G to their customers. These four are AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. However, as is often the case with mobile operators there are quite a few caveats. We'll take a look at these, along with a simple explanation of what 5G actually has to offer those of you that rely on mobile connectivity to do your job.
Real 5G vs. fake 5G
The terminology from mobile operators is confusing and often even borderline deceitful. A recent controversy around AT&T's launch of “enhanced 5G” is a perfect example of this. In March, owners of Apple devices on the AT&T network saw their signal bar change from 4G to 5Ge. Understandably, many iPhone owners were under the assumption that their phone suddenly became 5G capable.
Sadly, the whole re-brand was just a marketing ploy. What was advertised by AT&T as 5Ge was actually just a slightly faster version of their existing 4G network. Unsurprisingly, the whole plan backfired, and competitor Sprint even took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal to shame AT&T into halting their plan.
REAL 5G
So, now fake 5G has been debunked, let's talk about real 5G. Without going into too much detail, the International Telecom Union (the organization that sets rules around mobile technology) defines 5G as a system that uses “5G New Radio Software” and adheres to specifications around speed, latency and other technical terms. What is means to us as end-users is speed.
When it comes to speed, the first batches of 5G reviews are all over the place, but none were too disappointing. When The Verge took to the streets of Chicago to test the newly launched Verizon 5G network, they consistently saw speeds in excess of 500Mbps. Speeds like this mean your mobile device has the ability to download a full one hour episode of a Netflix show in 4K resolution in under a minute. Download speeds are not the only thing that has improved – latency has also dropped significantly. Latency is the time your browser (or other app) has to wait for its request to get to the Internet and back again. Lower latency means snappier responses from your applications.
Getting your hands on 5G
And now for the disappointing news – very few of us currently have access to a 5G network. Even the networks that launched earliest can only provide coverage in small parts of a city, and even then, the disadvantages of 5G mean your mobile device has to be really close to the cell tower, and ideally as close to a window as possible. It will be years until we have true nationwide coverage capable of reaching you in the basement of a client.
There are also very few devices that can do 5G – the Verizon tests mentioned above required a specific Motorola phone with a snap on module that doubles the size of the phone. T-Mobile has just one phone that supports 5G – a special version of the popular Samsung Galaxy S10. AT&T and Sprint offer the same Samsung, but also offer a hotspot, which is a much more practical way to get online.
For the service tech industry…
In closing, let's discuss what 5G means to your line of work; most service techs use tablets with built in cellular modems or carry a hotspot, but with a large coverage area, the vast majority of your calls will be well away from the small pockets of 5G coverage. In the areas where you can get 5G AND have a 5G hotspot, there is no doubt that the experience will be great. Service apps will be faster and downloads of manuals and how-to videos will be near instantaneous. But you know what else is usually pretty fast at this? Wi-Fi… Wi-Fi is easy to find, most major retailers offer Wi-Fi in their stores or buildings and coverage is seldom a problem.
So, while 5G is definitely going to be the future, that future is still several years away. Unless you have a burning desire to have the latest and greatest new tech, don't expect to be upgrading to a 5G device any time soon.
What are your thoughts on 5G? Is 4G fast enough for what you do? Head over to the TechTOWN Tools of the Trade forum to continue the discussion and chat with fellow technicians.