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Other 5G - is it worth it?

Once the carriers have 5G up and FULLY running on both spectrums. The question becomes how will you use the extra speed
If the applications are there it’s worth it. And then again how much more are the carriers going to charge monthly
 
bushman4 said:
Once the carriers have 5G up and FULLY running on both spectrums. The question becomes how will you use the extra speed
If the applications are there it’s worth it. And then again how much more are the carriers going to charge monthly
Click to expand...
Well, over here towers can get pretty congested so I often get 0.5-2 Mbps on LTE.

In my area, 5G isn't about getting high numbers on Speedtest. It's about being able to stream 480p YouTube without frequent skipping/freezing and not waiting forever for websites to load.
 
rui no onna said:
Well, over here towers can get pretty congested so I often get 0.5-2 Mbps on LTE.

In my area, 5G isn't about getting high numbers on Speedtest. It's about being able to stream 480p YouTube without frequent skipping/freezing and not waiting forever for websites to load.
Click to expand...


what carrier do you have ?
 
Do you remember when 3G was super fast and you were able to go on Youtube without any lag in 3G or H+ ?
Now with 3G it's so slow that even listening to the radio is hard

It's gonna be the same for 5G, 4G is going to be slow and we will need to switch to 5G in order to be able to use our phone in good condition :rolleyes:
 
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aue123 said:
what carrier do you have ?
Click to expand...
I have access to all 4 carriers: AT&T iPhone, Verizon iPad, T-Mobile iPad ($10/5GB/5 month plan) and Sprint for work.

T-Mobile and Sprint are the ones that are 0.5-2 Mbps.

At my workplace, Verizon's the most reliable and offers fastest speed (almost always higher than 10 Mbps down). Visiting my grandparents though, Verizon's pretty much non-existent while AT&T is good.

That said, at conventions and stuff where you have thousands and thousands in a small space, all of them can be quite crap.
 
i wonder where you live, my verizon gives me about 180 download and 30 upload. my population is around 250k in my area. even if i go downtown cincinnati i still get about 100 download
 
That depends, do you routinely download 8K videos and upload hours of super slo mo 240fps footage?
 
This really depends on your carrier. Take a look at Tmobile and what 5G can do for them. Right now their 5G is in the 600mhz spectrum so this means building penetration will be very good (though not as fast as higher frequency spectrum). With the Sprint acquisition, they will also get mid band coverage so this will mean faster speeds than what they currently have in the 600mhz spectrum. So 5G should do very well on Tmobile.
 
IMHO 5G is currently a nice-to-have but not a game-changer as far as phones are concerned. There's a lot of public misunderstanding about 5G. I work in telecom, and find that I have to educate many of my business customers about what 5G can and can't provide:

  1. While 5G will provide vastly better speed and latency, there are currently very few phone-based use-cases that can take advantage of the increased performance. An LTE speed test currently gives me 20 ms latency and over 200 Mbps download. Moving to a 1 ms latency and 1 Gbps connection will not really change much for most use cases.
  2. The first wave of 5G rollout in the sub-6GHz frequency bands will not provide any significant speed increases. Gigabit-class 5G speeds require mmWave radios, towers, and base stations. Rollout and uptake of mmWave will be slow due to the following points.
  3. One of the major advantages (other than speed) of 5G is the ability to support something like 10x more devices per square kilometre compared to LTE. That, however, comes at a cost. 5G uses smaller cells and requires tons of towers / base stations. Instead of having traditional "towers", 5G will require an antenna and base station for every city block (if not denser). Telecoms are installing 5G gear on every building > 5 stories.
  4. The 5G radio access network (RAN) essentially requires fibre to every tower / base station. This is a MASSIVE amount of fibre when combined with #3 above. It also means that 5G is not as simple as "add new antenna and base station to existing towers". A brand new network needs to be built from scratch.
  5. 5G will have a negative impact on device battery life, at least initially. Not only does 5G consume more power in and of itself than LTE, 5G handsets uses power less efficiently. They constantly switch between 5G and a fallback to LTE because coverage is initially spotty. This will improve as subsequent generations of 5G modems get introduced and as carriers improve 5G coverage.
All this to say, it won't hurt to wait for 5G to mature before jumping on the handset bandwagon. The same sort of things happened in the past when previous technologies like 2G GPRS/EDGE, 3G UTMS/HSPA and 4G LTE were introduced.
 
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I am not sure if the 5G new iPhone will be worth it, not the first iteration of it anyway. What I am waiting for is the new 5G iPad. That will keep my 11 pro good company for at least another year.
 
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