Daniel Craig flew high into the sky atop his motorbike as I watched the trailer for No Time to Die on my phone's screen. The YouTube stream never stalled, and when I scrubbed back through the video to rewatch Rami Malek's big entrance, I waited a mere second before the clip rebuffered and continued playing. That's what watching a video on T-Mobile's new 5G network is like: great, but not vastly different from my current experience using any other phone over 4G LTE.
The cellular status on my phone has listed "5G" instead of the usual "4G LTE" the past few days. I've been testing T-Mobile's new nationwide network, and yes, in almost every case, it's faster than the performance you would see on the carrier’s 4G LTE network. I measured 140 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds in Brooklyn on 5G using Ookla's Speed Test app, while a phone on T-Mobile's 4G LTE network hit around 106 Mbps in the same location. That's a little more than what T-Mobile said people should expect on its 5G network—a 20 percent bump in speed. For reference, the average mobile download speed in the US is 34 Mbps, according to Ookla, and it's usually faster in more populated areas.
But that (relatively minor) bump over existing speeds isn't what you might have pictured for 5G, especially after all the hype from mobile carriers touting the next-gen network over the past few years. Isn't 5G supposed to be super fast? Why, then, the measly 20 percent speed boost? Yes, the fifth generation of mobile network technology promises to bring much faster speeds, with the ability to connect multiple devices together at once. Much like how 4G LTE fostered a boom in mobile media streaming, 5G is poised to alter the tech landscape by advancing the growth of smarter cities where all the connected streetlamps, traffic lights, and object sensors can communicate in ways that let them work together more efficiently. It could also make for safer roads, since self-driving cars with 5G radios would be able to communicate with each other quickly to better avoid collisions.
None of this is possible with the current implementation of T-Mobile's new network. Sure, I've had a slightly better time watching videos and downloading apps, but my day-to-day experience hasn't changed. Browsing Instagram and Reddit doesn't feel any different. Those advances I mentioned will take gigabit-level speeds to work. But hey, T-Mobile's current implementation is one of the few 5G services in existence that reliably works indoors, and that's a start.
A Bigger Splash
What is unique about T-Mobile's approach is its claim as the first "nationwide 5G" network. Other carriers like Verizon have gradually been adding 5G to parts of select cities across the US, touting impressive speeds instead of broad coverage. There's no right way to deploy 5G, but I've seen the 5G logo consistently linger in my status bar on T-Mobile, whereas on other networks that indicator regularly flits back to 4G LTE.
Don't get me wrong, T-Mobile's 5G switched back to 4G LTE at times too, but it happened much less frequently than when I tested Sprint or Verizon's 5G network. That's because 5G comes in various flavors. T-Mobile claims its 5G network covers 200 million Americans, and that wide coverage is due to the specific type of spectrum (aka radio frequency) it's using: Low-band, specifically 600MHz. Similar to the spectrum used for 4G LTE, low-band frequencies cover large areas and penetrate buildings well. Network speeds are pretty fast too.
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But other carriers are using different spectrum. Sprint, which claims to be able to cover 11 million people with its 5G network, uses mid-band frequencies that aren't as wide-reaching as low-band, but they can still cover a good deal of ground (and penetrate most buildings and cars) while offering even faster speeds. I usually saw between 110 to 400 Mbps speeds when I tested Sprint's mid-band 5G network in Dallas and New York.
AT&T and Verizon are—at the moment—deploying millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G service, which delivers significantly faster speeds. The mmWave tech has some critical flaws, like having almost zero building penetration, not to mention an effective signal range of only a city block or two. It requires clusters of 5G antennas, or nodes, in a small sector to be effective, which is why at the moment it's utilized for high-traffic areas in cities, stadiums, and soon, airports. But wow are the speeds impressive; I jumped between 600 Mbps to 1.5 gigabits per second on Verizon's mmWave network in Chicago.
All the major US carriers have subsequent plans to use a mixture of the aforementioned spectrum in their respective 5G rollouts. AT&T, for example, is expected to launch its low-band 5G network this month, and no, the carrier's much-touted "5GE" service is not true 5G.
T-Mobile's goal is to combine its low-band spectrum with Sprint's mid-band tech if the merger between the two companies is approved. (The deal is currently pending litigation.) It would allow the carrier to have a robust 5G network that offers faster internet speeds in more areas around the country, with a touch of mmWave to serve high-traffic areas.
All of this is why, as you can see from my test, T-Mobile's 5G speeds at the moment aren't going to be all that different from what you can get today on 4G LTE. The new network does allow the carrier to say it has the "biggest 5G network." Does it matter? No, because there are still a few hoops you need to jump through to access 5G. It's just another reason why you should ignore 5G for now.
A Tale of Two Phones
I can't complain about faster internet speeds; it's what we all want, and T-Mobile's new 5G network modestly delivers that (and it will gradually get faster too). Scrubbing back through the same trailer for the next Bond flick on 4G LTE, I had to wait 10 seconds or more for the video to rebuffer so I could continue watching it. It might sound like a minor grievance, but incremental improvements like this are what allowed for the creation and success of hundreds of apps in the past decade.
Streaming gets sped up, but downloads are faster too. It took 25 seconds to download Netflix's Bird Box (around 690MB) over Verizon's mmWave 5G network, a minute and 15 seconds on Sprint's mid-band 5G network, and more than eight minutes over T-Mobile's low-band connection. On T-Mobile's 4G LTE network, after around eight minutes the download was only at 10 percent. (I lost my patience.)
It's not quite as fast as the other types of 5G spectrum, but it's decidedly faster than LTE. Even better, I was able to connect to the 5G network while in my home or when I sat and worked from of a cafe for a few hours. That's not possible on Verizon's network, where 5G service drops as soon as you walk indoors. That said, T-Mobile's speeds suffer from the same problem as all networks: Consistency. My download speeds often varied from 5 Mbps to 158 Mbps.
We'll see improvements as these networks grow. Perhaps more importantly, broader hardware support is coming. You can't use any old phone—or any existing iPhone—to connect to these networks. You will need a 5G-capable phone to access 5G networks, and even then it's not guaranteed that your 5G phone can connect to any carrier's 5G network.
Currently, you can only buy the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren Edition (could the name be any longer?) and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G to use T-Mobile's low-band 5G network. Switching carriers? Well, you can't connect to Verizon's 5G network with either device. You'll need to buy Verizon's version of the Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G instead. If you're traveling, you can't even connect to 5G networks deployed in other countries.
This lack of interoperability will (eventually) be sorted out so that your 5G phone will work on various carriers—just like how your 4G LTE phone works on multiple carriers—but like with all things 5G, it will take time. Even more of a reason to wait: phones supporting 5G will get cheaper soon. The aforementioned OnePlus and Samsung phones cost $900 and $1,300, respectively. Qualcomm's recent chipset announcements show that we'll also see some 5G phones in 2020 with mid-range prices, likely around $700.
Thankfully, all of T-Mobile's plans (including Metro by T-Mobile) include access to 5G automatically. On Verizon, you need to pay more to connect to 5G, and only Sprint's Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Premium plans offer 5G access. AT&T only offers 5G to its business customers for now.
The Waiting Game
No matter what carrier you're on, there are so many limitations to 5G access right now: You need to buy the right phone; you can't access 5G on another carrier's network in case you want to switch; you need to live in the right places; you need to pay more, whether it's for a phone or for a data plan. We're also only talking about download speeds. 5G upload speeds and 5G tethering aren't available yet on T-Mobile, so you'll still be heavily relying on 4G LTE. In your day-to-day life, unless you're regularly downloading movies and videos over cellular data instead of Wi-Fi, you will hardly notice a difference.
T-Mobile does have the fewest restrictions. If the merger with Sprint is ultimately approved, T-Mobile says it will push an update to its 5G phones so they can access Sprint's mid-band network, so users could see significantly faster internet speeds in the future (in areas where Sprint has deployed mid-band). But the phones do not support mmWave, so you won't be able to access T-Mobile's own mmWave 5G network. Or Verizon's. Or AT&T's. You get the idea.
Kudos to T-Mobile for launching the first nationwide 5G network, but for now it doesn't really matter.