WHAT IS 5G AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU ?

5G is fifth generation wireless technology for those of you who don't know what it is. But i'm sure (almost) everyone is aware that 5G is capable of improving the network connectivity dramatically. You ask how? 5G can deliver some insane download speeds with significantly reduced network latency compared to its predecessor 4G, yes its a game changer! Well, we've got various flavors of 5G and we'll see what works for the most, hang tight folks !

BUT...Are we there yet ?

Not really. When you skim through internet to find out real speeds or watch a video of 5G rollouts from different wireless carriers demonstrating new 5G, you will be jaw dropped to see speeds hitting anywhere from 950 Mbps to 1 Gbps. YES, you read it right. Thats ~800% to ~900% boost in performance compared to LTE. Let's get little technically to find what's actually happening at the core of 5G tech to deliver these kinds of speeds. Big players like ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint all use one of these three frequency bands to deliver 5G services to their customers i.e. mmWave (High Band), Sub-6 GHz or Low Band spectrum.

Strategy:

ATT:

ATT is using both low band and high band spectrum to deliver 5G and 5G+ services respectively.

5G (Low band and broader coverage): ATT's 5G service in rolled out to 10 new cities i.e. Las Vegas, Detroit, Louisville, Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Bridgeport, Buffalo, Birmingham and Washington D.C adding to already existing 19 cities.

5G+ (High band and low coverage): ATT 5G+ offers great speeds but with very limited coverage area. ATT has targeted parts of 35 cities like Detroit, Menlo Park (CA), Baltimore, Cleveland, Ocean City (MD), Oakland, Redwood city, San Bruno (CA), Philadelphia, Pheonix to offer this service. ATT has surpassed its initial goal of 29 cities.

T-Mobile:

Low band; Broader Coverage: T-Mobile with it's low band spectrum is targeting more than 200 million users nationwide to provide 5G to its consumers. With T-Mobile and Sprint merger its heard that T-mobile sprint carrier will cover 97% of US of which 85% covering rural areas with low band 5G service within three years of merger. Now it's just a waiting game to see if the merger helps them to climb up the ladder ahead of Verizon and ATT in terms of delivering reliable signal with broader coverage area.

Sprint:

Mid-Band: Sprint is tapping on majority of unused mid band spectrum in the US. They are using Massive MIMO and Beamforming to improve penetration, coverage area and have consistent signal. Massive MIMO is arranging group of antennas on a single cell tower to send multiple simultaneous beams to different users. Beamforming is sending single focused signal to every user in the cell to make sure each user has consistent signal.

Verizon:

High band; Low coverage: Similar to ATT 5G+ Verizon is making use of low band spectrum to offer 5G to its consumers.


Verdict:

5G as a tech is still in very early stage. Currently there are not many phones that can utilize all three frequency bands even if wireless providers were to offer services. So, I'd be more interested to see consumer spending patterns in electronics industry along side mobile processor developments from big guns like Qualcomm (Snapdragon 865) and Apple (A13 bionic chip) and how these chips are implemented in flag ship mobile devices for next 2-3 years. Also, at the moment I think it's premature to answer the million dollar question of who won the 5G race.