It now appears consumers will be choosing between 4G, low-band 5G and millimeter wave 5G in their high-end phones. Apple’s coming iPhone 12 devices appear to be coming in both 4G and 5G versions. It is not yet clear which 5G approach (low band or high band) Apple might choose.
Since early high-end phones supporting 5G will force users to choose access to either low-band or millimeter wave 5G, but not both, most consumers will have three choices to make.
Stay with advanced 4G, pick low-band 5G (which might not offer that much speed improvement) or millimeter wave 5G, which will provide much-faster speeds in relatively targeted locations.
AT&T 5G in the low band, for example, does not purport to offer a lot of advantages over 4G in terms of internet access speed. That role is reserved for millimeter wave 5G.
Likewise, T-Mobile US has not claimed its low-band 5G will offer huge speed advantages
over 4G.
There are all sorts of logical caveats. Since available bandwidth and speed are directly related, 5G speed advantages hinge on available bandwidth, and there will not be too much additional bandwidth available for low-band 5G. Also, speed is directly and inversely related to the number of customers on the network.
With light loading at first, low-band 5G speeds might show significant advantage over good 4G. But that advantage will dwindle as loading increases (more subscribers are added).
Some seem to characterize low-band 5G as “not real 5G.” That’s catchy, but wrong. All variants of 5G are based on the 5G standards. But the real advantages of 5G, in terms of speed, come with use of millimeter wave spectrum, not low-band spectrum.
The point is that good 4G might be a wise choice for many consumers, when buying new high-end phones in 2020. It will be some time until 5G networks are relatively fully built out and devices can support low-band, mid-band and high-band frequencies.
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