It's Been a Decade Since Consumers Faced These Device Issues

It has been a decade since 4G was launched, so many customers will face issues and choices they have not had to grapple with in a long time. Some customers will face these issues for the first time. Some of the same problems early 4G presented are happening with 5G as well. But 5G also presents a new wrinkle. 

At launch, 4G could be used only for internet access, as no phones were available. 5G was the same story. We are starting to move beyond that initial phase, as 5G phones now are coming to market. 

As with 4G, those devices tend to be high-end devices. For that reason, handset price might be an issue for many would-be buyers and 5G adopters. Also, device selection is limited, at first. 

But 5G also poses some issues 4G did not generally face. Most of us could experience a 4G performance boost over 3G that was tangible. It is far less clear that the typical smartphone user is going to notice an improved experience with 5G, for several reasons. 

With the exception of downloads or possibly a few virtual reality or augmented reality apps, consumer interactions with web sites or apps will not be perceptibly better, as 4G generally supports all the apps people generally use.

As the user of a gigabit per second connection, in daily use, cannot actually provide perceptible or actual end user experience benefits beyond perhaps 25 Mbps to 50 Mbps per device, so will the additional 5G performance using millimeter wave spectrum be undetectable, even when available. 

That is especially true where advanced 4G is available, and where users own devices able to use advanced 4G. 

It is conceivable that 5G experience will provide experience benefits, though. That might be the case where 4G is challenged by terrain or other issues, and 5G is transmitted using different cell locations that are not limited by terrain or other issues. In such cases, it is more the better coverage and stronger signal that matter, and less the network protocols (4G or 5G). 

Beyond that, since 5G uses such a huge range of potential frequencies, since different service providers have different amounts of such spectrum to use, and because frequency agility adds cost to any device, early 5G devices will not automatically support all 5G frequencies.

That is not a new problem. In the 4G era, mobile service providers had licenses for different frequencies, so not every mobile device was able to use every frequency, on every network. 

While not a new problem--as every U.S. device has had to be optimized for the particular frequencies used by each major carrier, this  will be a bigger problem in the 5G era, early on, since full frequency agility adds device cost, and 5G is the first mobile generation to literally use “any frequency.” That means different carriers will launch on different mixes of low, mid-band and high-frequencies. 

The OnePlus device for T-Mobile US 5G only can use low-band, specifically the 600-MHz frequencies T-Mobile has used to initially provide 5G services, and specifically does not support millimeter wave frequencies. 

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 5G supports low-band and millimeter wave, though. The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G supports millimeter wave 5G, but not the 

On Sprint’s 5G network, the  LG V50 ThinQ uses the mid-band spectrum. The Motorola Moto Mod runs on millimeter wave frequencies on Verizon’s network.