 |
After years of hype, carriers have spent the last several months turning on their 5G networks.
It's supposed to change your life with its revolutionary speed, but for now, the deployments remain limited, so don't be surprised if you're nowhere near the service. For 5G, as with any technology, give it some time.
Between the end of 2018 through the first few months of this year, the carriers were racing to claim some sort of "first." Verizon and AT&T launched their mobile 5G networks, while KT said a robot in South Korea was its first 5G customer.
Sprint turned on its network in June, followed shortly thereafter by T-Mobile. UK carrier EE was the first in its country to turn on 5G.
Sounds great, right?
But it's a virtual certainty that you aren't a 5G customer of any of these carriers. AT&T's network is live in 21 cities, including Atlanta, Dallas and New Orleans, but the customers are all small businesses and the carrier has refused to talk about where the coverage is actually located.
Verizon, which launched a 5G home service last fall, has targeted 30 cities this year, with 15 cities online, but the coverage looks more like a collection of hotspots.
Back in April, the early tests of its 5G network were a mess, with erratic and inconsistent coverage and only some areas where you could experience 5G's true speeds with the Motorola Z3 and its 5G Moto Mod.
But a follow-up test in May with the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, which had the 5G radio integrated into the phone, proved a much better experience, with speeds above 1 gigabit per second, or faster than Google Fiber.
A test of Sprint's 5G network showed less impressive speeds (but still faster than 4G LTE), but better coverage.
No comments:
Post a Comment