funny you would say that. I’ve been enjoying only charging my phone every two or three days lately. Maybe it’s just because it’s such a new battery, but it’s an improvement over my 12PM. I always leave 5G on.
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Carrier Does millimeter wave 5G actually work for anybody?
- Thread starter zach-coleman
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Good for you, but that piece of anecdotal evidence can't change the fact that 5G is fiercely battery draining in usu (when at all available) and of little real world benefit. WSJ's expert calls 5G a ”power hog”. MKBHD says ”5G sucks”. I could go on.
What I am reading here quite surprises me, I never saw the 5G mW/5G+ sign on my phone, but normally I would get around 100-250Mbps down with LTE, 150-500Mbps down with 5G (tests at random places), highest I got on normal 5G was 1Gbps down/100Mbps up. With an iPhone 13 in Berlin, 5G is available outdoors at all times (well maybe 99-95% of the time). Overall internet speeds in Germany are considered to be quite low on European average, so reading here about speeds under 100Mbps with 5G/5G mW was quite an eye opener.
I guess the best of all worlds is to set it at LTE and somehow get a fake 5G icon on the screen so you get the better LTE and power savings but everyone else (and maybe even you) is impressed to see you are on 5G! 🤣
It’s at its best at tourist locations, inside sports arenas, etc. It doesn’t work at all if you’re only a short distance away.
Usually it will become visibly slow, like taking 10-30 seconds to load a basic webpage. I’ll pop over to speedtest out of curiosity sometimes, I don’t do it the other way around as I’d imagine that would cause me to start seeing things that aren’t actually there.
Also, on the C Band concern, I am not sure how to tell the difference. I wasn’t aware of this. However, between Dallas, Cincinnati, and NYC I’ve only had the 5G+ icon appear once and have my service continue to operate as expected instead of falling off a cliff. So either I’ve only ever hit one mmWave tower ever or something somewhere is busted.
Auto. Although last night I finally turned it off after it constantly dropping out. Might leave it like that for a while, it appears AT&T 5G might just suck.
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Another VZW user here (southern New England). I see plenty of mm wave coverage in my travels throughout the day and at home with download speeds upwards of 1Gbps (VPN off) on my 13 ProMax.
Don't really have 5G in my area (northern New England). For example, near Portsmouth, the 5G signal (T-Mobile/MVNO) isn't that consistent or strong. Many locations still barely get LTE esp. in more rural areas.
You can be talking to someone then walk 20 feet and you've been disconnected. The same with using online services like a GPS or being online... you have 2-3 bars while another minute, you have 1 bar.
It's inconsistent depending on location.
When traveling, I sometimes see a stronger 5G signal, like near Boston. Outside of a main city area, 5G is not much available. Also, 5G uses more battery life, at least in the 13 Pro.
Normal usage, use LTE. While traveling, use 5G auto, if possible.
You can be talking to someone then walk 20 feet and you've been disconnected. The same with using online services like a GPS or being online... you have 2-3 bars while another minute, you have 1 bar.
It's inconsistent depending on location.
When traveling, I sometimes see a stronger 5G signal, like near Boston. Outside of a main city area, 5G is not much available. Also, 5G uses more battery life, at least in the 13 Pro.
Normal usage, use LTE. While traveling, use 5G auto, if possible.
Per Apple, mid-band 5G can deliver up to 3.5 Gbps. MmWave up to 4 Gbps. Basically, every Speedtest posted here could be mid-band.
Is there any way to tell if it's mmWave 5g vs midband when on t-mobile?
Fastest I've seen is near work (downtown midwest city), where it's 5g UC and I get around 300mbit. I don't test or check anywhere anymore, though..The novelty is long gone, and I don't use much cell data anyway.. >2gb/month.
At home, I get around 60mbit on regular 5g. Exactly the same as LTE, if I turn off 5g.
Fastest I've seen is near work (downtown midwest city), where it's 5g UC and I get around 300mbit. I don't test or check anywhere anymore, though..The novelty is long gone, and I don't use much cell data anyway.. >2gb/month.
At home, I get around 60mbit on regular 5g. Exactly the same as LTE, if I turn off 5g.
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Works fine for me but I’m in a 5G enabled city. If your local area doesn’t have a 5G transmitter it won’t work, you also you need your telephone service provider to enable it which may be slightly more expensive. Usually there’s no significant price difference though.
I currently get this behavior in NYC, which one would expect to be one of the best in the world for 5G rollout. In upstate, data works much smoother but of course alternates between 5G and LTE.
As usual, his experience vastly differs from my own. Instead of “5G sucks” he should have said “5G sucks in my home village”. But hey, he wouldn’t be a youtuber if he wasn’t completely convinced of the universal truth of his opinion…
At least he lives in Jersey City instead of the middle of nowhere while making this claim. If 5G sucks for him, it likely sucks for several million Americans, considering he lives so close to NYC.
Recently visited Nashville a little while ago for an event, and while in the event space I was limited to AT&T’s low and mid band networks, outside the area I was easily pulling over 2Gbps speeds and near Ethernet latency. This was in all directions, even under some trees!
I’ll be going to San Diego in January, so I am excited to see how it performs there.
I’ll be going to San Diego in January, so I am excited to see how it performs there.
No issues on 5G Auto either... Incredible battery life on my 13 Mini. I agree with strong LTE there's no practical use for 5G, but it's not harming anything by leaving it on auto. No need for a power bank, no need to even think about it.
AT&T user here, in southeastern USA. Not in a big city. I noticed that with "5G" on I was getting absolutely abysmal download speeds. Like can barely load a normal safari page. Switched it over to LTE and whattya know...pages load instantly. Speed seems fast af and I'm getting 250+mbps. Haven't turned on "5G" since.
As far as I know, the software only supports 5G NSA (Non Standalone), which means 5G is supported by 4G, and both are switched on simultaneously, hence the battery draining. If you have excellent battery life with 5G Auto, then the 5G is switched off most of the time.
As I'm reading this thread, I'm seeing a few misconceptions about the 5G spectrum, technologies and the carrier-specific status bar icons in the US, so I'll try my best to try to explain what's going on with 5G in the US right now.
From what I have seen, the most confusing thing for consumers about 5G is the two frequency ranges (FR) it currently employs.
Unlike LTE (4G) and 3G, 5G NR has two ranges of frequencies it can use.
FR1 is officially defined as bands 600MHz (0.6GHz) - 6700MHz (6.7GHz)
This frequency range is often referred to as "Sub-6 5G"
Many of the FR1 frequencies have already been in use for LTE worldwide before 5G was ever finalized
FR2 is officially defined as bands 24500MHz (24.5GHz) - 71000MHz (71GHz)
This is what gets called "mmWave 5G"
mmWave gets a lot of bad press for its poor ability to penetrate buildings, foliage and other obstacles, while also requiring extra antenna hardware (the pill-shaped cutout on every 5G iPhone, except the SE 3). A lot of news outlets have posted stories about how 5G only reaches "a few hundred feet" from the site.
This is true in certain circumstances, but it entirely ignores the existence of 5G on the FR1 spectrum, which when compared to LTE on the same frequencies often actually has better range than LTE. This can happen because it can use technologies like Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (Massive MIMO, mMIMO), beamforming (beamsteering, spatial filtering). Note that these are optional features of the specification, so not all carriers deploy all of them. More about 5G frequencies can be found in this Wikipedia article.
Frequency is not the only factor when it comes to speed and range, other factors include transmission power, interference, and the size of the frequency band (bandwidth).
The easiest way to visualize this is the frequency being the speed limit, and bandwidth the number of lanes. Higher speed limit + more lanes = more capacity. The issue with FR1 is that there is not a lot of spectrum available for carriers to license, and when some spectrum frees up in FR1, it is usually expensive to license at high bandwidths. This is a problem for extremely crowded areas (stadiums, busy streets, intersections, venues, malls…), suddenly, there are many people using data in one area, and the serving cell sites start running out of capacity.
This is where FR2 comes in because it is extremely underutilized because of its limited penetration capability, meaning a LOT of it can be licensed extremely cheaply for the capacity it provides. The limited range of FR2 becomes less of an issue when the carrier only tries to cover a small, densely packed area.
An even greater source of confusion about mmWave 5G has been the carrier-specific 5G icons in the US:
AT&T:
5Ge - Not 5G, this is AT&T's way of trying to deceive and confuse customers about what 5G is. 5Ge is just LTE with a few extra modern, fairly standard technologies deployed (256QAM,4×4 MIMO, 3CA). Most LTE-only phones from 2018 onward support these technologies, and will display the 5Ge icon when connected to these new technologies.
5G - This is actual 5G, you need a 5G phone to use this network. This status bar icon means your phone is connected to a 5G network using a technology called DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing). This technology allocates a part of an LTE band to 5G as needed. It typically only carrier a maximum of ~15% speed increase. Because it rarely requires a change of hardware deployed on the tower sites, it is an economical way of bringing mild speed improvement to many sites with almost no upfront cost.
5G+ - This in most cases means your phone is connected to AT&T's 5G C-Band frequency. C-Band (3.7GHz is a part of FR1), and has started wide deployment at the end of Q1 2022. Only a part of the C-Band spectrum has been cleared so far (previously used for satellite TV, which is now relocating transmission onto new frequencies). AT&T currently has access to only 40MHz of this spectrum, this is the early clearing spectrum they can use before satellite TV completes its relocation, which currently scheduled to be finished in late December 2023. It is notable that they also purchased C-Band spectrum which is not supported on all 5G devices that support C-Band, and only 2022 and newer phones will be able to connect to it. This part of their C-Band spectrum has been referred to as "DoD" and operates at around 3.45Ghz.
This icon is also used for AT&T's mmWave network, which is currently limited to parts of major airports, venues, and areas surrounding the venues, but I have seen some rare exceptions to this.
Their C-Band has been able to do 600Mbps down, and 60Mbps up in good conditions.
They currently use 40MHz of 3700MHz for their 5G+ C-Band service, with 40MHz of their 3450MHz of C-Band in certain locations. When the C-Band spectrum fully clears in December 2023, they will have up to 180MHz between 3.45GHz and 3.7GHz.
T-Mobile:
5G - T-Mobile uses 600MHz low-band spectrum on pretty much every one of their sites, and has recently started using 1900MHz freed up by the 3G shutdown for 5G as well. Both of these frequencies have commonly been used for LTE before all around the world.
5G UC - This means your phone is connected to their "5G Ultra Capacity." This almost exclusively consists of 2500MHz spectrum they got from buying up Sprint. They got this spectrum a lot earlier than the AT&T and Verizon (about a year and something), so they have had the opportunity to deploy a lot of it in many places. It is common to see T-Mobile with 140MHz and more of this spectrum deployed. While the frequency of this spectrum is lower than C-Band (3700MHz), it has often been recorded not reaching as far as C-Band. This is because the transmitters on this frequency are not allowed power levels as high as for C-Band. T-Mobile has also not been using mMIMO too frequently for 2500MHz, which tends to impair the band's indoor performance significantly.
T-Mobile has been publicly criticizing the mmWave spectrum, and the carriers who deploy it, but they are currently running trials of mmWave in New York and Las Vegas.
T-Mobile uses 600MHz and 1900Mhz for their 5G, and up to 190MHz wide 2500MHz for their 5G UC, and are conducting limited experiments with 400MHz wide mmWave. It is important to note that the bandwidth of their 2.5GHz deployment will vary wildly because of the way the 2.5GHz band is licensed.
Verizon:
5G - This signals a connection to Verizon's DSS 5G network (DSS tech explained under AT&T 5G). It has been performing about the same to ~15% faster than their LTE.
5G UW - This signals a connection to Verizon's "5G Ultra Wideband" network. This includes their C-Band spectrum, which they currently deploy at 60MHz bandwidth in the early clearing markets, as well as some deployment at 100MHz in non-early clearing markets (this is possible because they made a deal with the satellite TV providers to clear their spectrum faster).
Verizon's C-Band 5G usually reaches around 200 - 400Mbps (40Mbps up), up to 1000Mbps in dense areas with good fiber (120Mbps up), and have been able to do as much as 1400Mbps (150Mbps up) in their 100MHz deployments.
They have famously deployed the by far largest and most extensive mmWave 5G network in the world, a connection to this network also shows as 5G UW. They have also deployed 800MHz of mmWave on all their mmWave sites (as opposed to AT&T and T-Mobile typically only going with 400MHz). They have the most experience of all US carriers with mmWave, and their mmWave network has been performing the best /MHz of all the US carriers. They are also deploying software updates to their mmWave radios that allow for faster mmWave uploads.
Their mmWave will easily reach 1500Mbps down, and up to 4000Mbps down at good signal strengths. With the recent software updates to their radios, their mmWave managed 400Mbps upload at good signal strengths.
Verizon uses 60 or 100MHz wide 3700MHz C-Band for their 5g UW service, and will use 140-200MHz wide 3700MHz C-Band service when all the spectrum clears in December 2023. They also use 800MHz wide 28GHz or 39GHz mmWave in certain locations. They use current LTE spectrum for their regular 5G.
So, to close this essay-length post, 5G+ (or 5G UW, 5G UC) does not mean your phone is connected to 5G mmWave, and it is not anyone's fault for thinking that, as it's what Apple and the carriers have been pretty unclear about. Maybe Apple should have added a "5G mm" icon to signal mmWave connection, while I support this decision, I don't think they will ever do that because as far as they know, their average customer does not care.
The speed of 5G, whether it be C-Band, 2500Mhz or mmWave will vary wildly based on things like technologies deployed, bandwidth, signal strength, cellular plan, phone software and weather. As 5G continues to mature, we will be able to take advantage of technologies like carrier aggregation (using multiple frequencies at once to speed up transmission), Massive MIMO, and the fiber backhaul the tower connects to. iPhones have widely shown that optimization is critical to mmWave performance, but that doesn't mean it can't perform suboptimally, and the same goes for C-Band 5G+, which is most likely what the OP is connected to for the Speedtest. It is important to remember that mmWave will never be deployed nearly everywhere, as its purpose is to make sure you can make a call inside a packed area.
I do not work in cellular networking, but I tried to make sure that all the info I presented is as accurate as possible, please let me know if you believe I made a mistake in explaining anything or got something wrong.
TL;DR: 5G+ doesn't mean you are connected to mmWave, it most likely means you are connected to AT&T's 3.7GHz 5G network, and while C-Band 5G gives impressive performance even indoor, do not expect speeds comparable to home internet on cellular while hunkered down in your basement. It is also possible the site you are connected to is still getting optimized or getting its backhaul upgraded.
From what I have seen, the most confusing thing for consumers about 5G is the two frequency ranges (FR) it currently employs.
Unlike LTE (4G) and 3G, 5G NR has two ranges of frequencies it can use.
FR1 is officially defined as bands 600MHz (0.6GHz) - 6700MHz (6.7GHz)
This frequency range is often referred to as "Sub-6 5G"
Many of the FR1 frequencies have already been in use for LTE worldwide before 5G was ever finalized
FR2 is officially defined as bands 24500MHz (24.5GHz) - 71000MHz (71GHz)
This is what gets called "mmWave 5G"
mmWave gets a lot of bad press for its poor ability to penetrate buildings, foliage and other obstacles, while also requiring extra antenna hardware (the pill-shaped cutout on every 5G iPhone, except the SE 3). A lot of news outlets have posted stories about how 5G only reaches "a few hundred feet" from the site.
This is true in certain circumstances, but it entirely ignores the existence of 5G on the FR1 spectrum, which when compared to LTE on the same frequencies often actually has better range than LTE. This can happen because it can use technologies like Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (Massive MIMO, mMIMO), beamforming (beamsteering, spatial filtering). Note that these are optional features of the specification, so not all carriers deploy all of them. More about 5G frequencies can be found in this Wikipedia article.
Frequency is not the only factor when it comes to speed and range, other factors include transmission power, interference, and the size of the frequency band (bandwidth).
The easiest way to visualize this is the frequency being the speed limit, and bandwidth the number of lanes. Higher speed limit + more lanes = more capacity. The issue with FR1 is that there is not a lot of spectrum available for carriers to license, and when some spectrum frees up in FR1, it is usually expensive to license at high bandwidths. This is a problem for extremely crowded areas (stadiums, busy streets, intersections, venues, malls…), suddenly, there are many people using data in one area, and the serving cell sites start running out of capacity.
This is where FR2 comes in because it is extremely underutilized because of its limited penetration capability, meaning a LOT of it can be licensed extremely cheaply for the capacity it provides. The limited range of FR2 becomes less of an issue when the carrier only tries to cover a small, densely packed area.
An even greater source of confusion about mmWave 5G has been the carrier-specific 5G icons in the US:
AT&T:
5Ge - Not 5G, this is AT&T's way of trying to deceive and confuse customers about what 5G is. 5Ge is just LTE with a few extra modern, fairly standard technologies deployed (256QAM,4×4 MIMO, 3CA). Most LTE-only phones from 2018 onward support these technologies, and will display the 5Ge icon when connected to these new technologies.
5G - This is actual 5G, you need a 5G phone to use this network. This status bar icon means your phone is connected to a 5G network using a technology called DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing). This technology allocates a part of an LTE band to 5G as needed. It typically only carrier a maximum of ~15% speed increase. Because it rarely requires a change of hardware deployed on the tower sites, it is an economical way of bringing mild speed improvement to many sites with almost no upfront cost.
5G+ - This in most cases means your phone is connected to AT&T's 5G C-Band frequency. C-Band (3.7GHz is a part of FR1), and has started wide deployment at the end of Q1 2022. Only a part of the C-Band spectrum has been cleared so far (previously used for satellite TV, which is now relocating transmission onto new frequencies). AT&T currently has access to only 40MHz of this spectrum, this is the early clearing spectrum they can use before satellite TV completes its relocation, which currently scheduled to be finished in late December 2023. It is notable that they also purchased C-Band spectrum which is not supported on all 5G devices that support C-Band, and only 2022 and newer phones will be able to connect to it. This part of their C-Band spectrum has been referred to as "DoD" and operates at around 3.45Ghz.
This icon is also used for AT&T's mmWave network, which is currently limited to parts of major airports, venues, and areas surrounding the venues, but I have seen some rare exceptions to this.
Their C-Band has been able to do 600Mbps down, and 60Mbps up in good conditions.
They currently use 40MHz of 3700MHz for their 5G+ C-Band service, with 40MHz of their 3450MHz of C-Band in certain locations. When the C-Band spectrum fully clears in December 2023, they will have up to 180MHz between 3.45GHz and 3.7GHz.
T-Mobile:
5G - T-Mobile uses 600MHz low-band spectrum on pretty much every one of their sites, and has recently started using 1900MHz freed up by the 3G shutdown for 5G as well. Both of these frequencies have commonly been used for LTE before all around the world.
5G UC - This means your phone is connected to their "5G Ultra Capacity." This almost exclusively consists of 2500MHz spectrum they got from buying up Sprint. They got this spectrum a lot earlier than the AT&T and Verizon (about a year and something), so they have had the opportunity to deploy a lot of it in many places. It is common to see T-Mobile with 140MHz and more of this spectrum deployed. While the frequency of this spectrum is lower than C-Band (3700MHz), it has often been recorded not reaching as far as C-Band. This is because the transmitters on this frequency are not allowed power levels as high as for C-Band. T-Mobile has also not been using mMIMO too frequently for 2500MHz, which tends to impair the band's indoor performance significantly.
T-Mobile has been publicly criticizing the mmWave spectrum, and the carriers who deploy it, but they are currently running trials of mmWave in New York and Las Vegas.
T-Mobile uses 600MHz and 1900Mhz for their 5G, and up to 190MHz wide 2500MHz for their 5G UC, and are conducting limited experiments with 400MHz wide mmWave. It is important to note that the bandwidth of their 2.5GHz deployment will vary wildly because of the way the 2.5GHz band is licensed.
Verizon:
5G - This signals a connection to Verizon's DSS 5G network (DSS tech explained under AT&T 5G). It has been performing about the same to ~15% faster than their LTE.
5G UW - This signals a connection to Verizon's "5G Ultra Wideband" network. This includes their C-Band spectrum, which they currently deploy at 60MHz bandwidth in the early clearing markets, as well as some deployment at 100MHz in non-early clearing markets (this is possible because they made a deal with the satellite TV providers to clear their spectrum faster).
Verizon's C-Band 5G usually reaches around 200 - 400Mbps (40Mbps up), up to 1000Mbps in dense areas with good fiber (120Mbps up), and have been able to do as much as 1400Mbps (150Mbps up) in their 100MHz deployments.
They have famously deployed the by far largest and most extensive mmWave 5G network in the world, a connection to this network also shows as 5G UW. They have also deployed 800MHz of mmWave on all their mmWave sites (as opposed to AT&T and T-Mobile typically only going with 400MHz). They have the most experience of all US carriers with mmWave, and their mmWave network has been performing the best /MHz of all the US carriers. They are also deploying software updates to their mmWave radios that allow for faster mmWave uploads.
Their mmWave will easily reach 1500Mbps down, and up to 4000Mbps down at good signal strengths. With the recent software updates to their radios, their mmWave managed 400Mbps upload at good signal strengths.
Verizon uses 60 or 100MHz wide 3700MHz C-Band for their 5g UW service, and will use 140-200MHz wide 3700MHz C-Band service when all the spectrum clears in December 2023. They also use 800MHz wide 28GHz or 39GHz mmWave in certain locations. They use current LTE spectrum for their regular 5G.
So, to close this essay-length post, 5G+ (or 5G UW, 5G UC) does not mean your phone is connected to 5G mmWave, and it is not anyone's fault for thinking that, as it's what Apple and the carriers have been pretty unclear about. Maybe Apple should have added a "5G mm" icon to signal mmWave connection, while I support this decision, I don't think they will ever do that because as far as they know, their average customer does not care.
The speed of 5G, whether it be C-Band, 2500Mhz or mmWave will vary wildly based on things like technologies deployed, bandwidth, signal strength, cellular plan, phone software and weather. As 5G continues to mature, we will be able to take advantage of technologies like carrier aggregation (using multiple frequencies at once to speed up transmission), Massive MIMO, and the fiber backhaul the tower connects to. iPhones have widely shown that optimization is critical to mmWave performance, but that doesn't mean it can't perform suboptimally, and the same goes for C-Band 5G+, which is most likely what the OP is connected to for the Speedtest. It is important to remember that mmWave will never be deployed nearly everywhere, as its purpose is to make sure you can make a call inside a packed area.
I do not work in cellular networking, but I tried to make sure that all the info I presented is as accurate as possible, please let me know if you believe I made a mistake in explaining anything or got something wrong.
TL;DR: 5G+ doesn't mean you are connected to mmWave, it most likely means you are connected to AT&T's 3.7GHz 5G network, and while C-Band 5G gives impressive performance even indoor, do not expect speeds comparable to home internet on cellular while hunkered down in your basement. It is also possible the site you are connected to is still getting optimized or getting its backhaul upgraded.
This is from over two years ago when they first came out with it. They have added much more cells to support it. Only available in select locations in the city ( Metro Atlanta) predominantly in the major business districts. We now have c band available all over the metro area.
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That explains it - the exchange rate between Australian megabits and American megabits 😉
I use 5G all day long here in Seattle and don't see it burning battery at all. I'll take my own anecdotal evidence over WSJ and YouTubers any day of the week. Good for me.