5G, the most recent cellular network standard, has finally reached maturity. Over the last two years, U.S. carriers have expanded out their 5G networks across the country, bringing 5G to over 90% of the country’s population. It’s now difficult to find a modern smartphone that doesn’t support some form of 5G connectivity.
This implies that unless you haven’t upgraded your phone in a while or live in a rural region where 5G isn’t yet available, there’s a strong possibility you already have a 5G smartphone and have had some 5G coverage. Still, with all the fanfare around 5G technology, you may be wondering precisely how fast it’s supposed to be – especially if your experience falls short of the hype.
Like the 4G/LTE networks that have been in place for the past decade or so, a variety of factors contribute to whether you get the fastest and best 5G speeds, including your phone, carrier, distance from best towers, and the number of people sharing those towers. However, they are more obvious in the 5G era because the newer technology leaves us hoping for better speeds, but 5G operates on a broader spectrum of frequencies, which further complicates matters.
There is no doubt that 5G has many advantages over 4G, but as with any new technology, it has had some growing pains. Thankfully, we’re no longer in the early stages of 5G deployments, and overall performance and coverage across all carriers is far better than it was two years ago. Everything you need to know is right here.
Theoretical 5G speed
In theory, 5G has the ability to deliver stunning 10Gbps speeds that were inconceivable in the early days of cellular technology. However, like with any spec sheet, it’s crucial to note that these are theoretical maximums that you’ll almost certainly never reach in practice.
One important point to remember is that the 10Gbps figure is the maximum overall bandwidth accessible to all 5G devices connected to a single radio transceiver on a cellular tower. Individual devices lack the CPUs and antennae required to achieve these speeds even when sitting directly next to a tower; instead, the 10Gbps is intended to be shared among dozens, if not hundreds, of devices, ensuring that everyone receives the greatest possible performance. On a lesser scale, the same logic applies to your home’s Wi-Fi 6 router.
While we hate to use the word “never,” we’re not expecting to see any consumer devices reach these top 5G speeds before the deployment of next-generation 6G technology.
Nobody ever obtained 1Gbps download speeds on 4G LTE-A, and as quaint as it now seems, those of us who remember the glory days of EDGE data would have laughed at the prospect of even receiving 300Mpbs on a 2007 iPhone or Nokia N95.
Similarly, the averages are approximations, and the various technologies confound the results because each generation has progressed and continues to expand long after the following generation is released. There was also AT&T’s “5G E” hoax a few years ago, which aimed to convince customers that 4G LTE-A was a “5G Evolution.”
Actual 5G download speeds
To make matters even more complicated, there are three different “flavors” of 5G that can have a significant impact on your real download speeds depending on which one you’re connected to. Unlike previous cellular technologies, 5G has spread across a far wider range of frequencies, with the ones that deliver the quickest speeds being available in the fewest places.
It’s not the carriers colluding to slow down, but rather the laws of physics at work. If you’ve ever installed a dual-band or tri-band Wi-Fi network in your house, you’re surely aware that the lower 2.4GHz frequencies cover more ground but give significantly slower speeds than the shorter-range 5GHz radios. On a far larger scale, the same holds true for cellular frequencies.
While 5G uses many more bands, they can be divided into three categories. Low-band 5G refers to any frequencies operating below 2.3GHz, which give vast coverage but only marginally faster speeds than 4G/LTE. It also doesn’t help that 5G frequently uses the same frequencies as 4G/LTE signals, forcing it to give way to older traffic via a newer 5G technology known as Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS). This means that 4G/LTE devices will always have priority on certain frequencies, further slowing down 5G users.
High-band mmWave, on the other hand, operates in the relative stratosphere of Extremely High Frequency (EHF) radio transmissions, beginning at roughly 24GHz and offering great speeds but only covering a city block. Carriers have just discovered a sweet spot with midrange 5G, which begins at roughly 2.5GHz and includes the 3.7-3.98GHz C-band frequencies. These give the best of both worlds, providing adequate range without sacrificing performance.
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When it comes to these frequencies and total speeds, there is another factor to consider. As previously stated, no smartphone exists in a vacuum; you share these frequencies with everyone else who is connected to the same tower as you. Whatever bandwidth that tower has available must be divided among all devices that want a piece of it. This is why the fastest mmWave transceivers are generally found in densely populated venues such as stadiums and airports, where 70,000 people may be fighting for 5G service.
So, how does this play out in practice? Because of the large range of low-band 5G frequencies, “nationwide” networks on all three carriers rely on them to cover as many people as feasible. T-Mobile was the first to deploy a countrywide 5G network to all 50 states, but it did it using 600MHz spectrum, which is at the bottom of the cellular frequency band and the slowest of all. AT&T parked the majority of its low-band 5G on the 850MHz and 1900MHz (1.9GHz) bands, utilizing DSS to connect it to its 4G/LTE towers. Verizon was the last to go countrywide, in late 2022, constructing its low-band 5G network in a manner similar to that of AT&T.
As a result of these early rollouts, 5G speeds were rarely significantly faster than 4G/LTE and, in some situations, may have been worse. In fact, Verizon’s DSS was so awful in late 2020 that PCMag’s Sascha Segan labeled it a “desperately slow system” and advised Verizon iPhone owners to disable 5G totally.
Fortunately, a lot has changed since then. T-Mobile has already began rolling out what it now calls its 5G Ultra Capacity network, a mid-band 2.5GHz 5G service using spectrum acquired through its merger with Sprint, by early 2021. A year later, Verizon entered the fray with its freshly acquired 3.7-3.98GHz C-band spectrum, broadening its 5G Ultra Wideband network far beyond the extremely uncommon mmWave towers it had installed in metropolitan areas. AT&T also began rolling out its own piece of C-band spectrum at the same time, albeit considerably more cautiously.
Today, most urban areas are largely covered by midband 5G, at least on Verizon and T-Mobile. Verizon announced in March that their 5G Ultra Wideband network currently serves over 200 million people, while T-Mobile’s 5G Ultra Capacity network served 275 million people as of July, with aspirations to reach 300 million by the end of 2023. Unfortunately, AT&T remains a laggard, with its 5G Plus network only available in “limited areas” of around 50 cities.
The latest market reports from Ookla and Opensignal, which evaluate median and average 5G download speeds and other performance parameters across the United States, show these coverage discrepancies. T-Mobile has maintained a consistent lead thanks to its big head start on midrange 5G deployments, while Verizon has been slowly edging closer, while AT&T’s poorer coverage leaves it trailing as all the people on its low-band DSS 5G pull down its scores.
T-Mobile leads the pack with an overall average/median of roughly 200Mbps, while Verizon averages around 100Mbps and AT&T averages 80Mbps.
Of fact, median and average download speeds do not provide the complete picture. They mostly indicate how many people are enjoying the best speeds on each carrier’s network. Under ideal conditions, Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband (5G UW) service can provide the same peak speeds as T-Mobile’s 5G Ultra Capacity (5G UC); it’s just that T-Mobile customers are twice as likely to find 5G UC coverage as Verizon customers, who will likely be forced to settle for slower low-band 5G.
Nonetheless, most of this is dependent on where you live, work, and travel. Many Verizon and AT&T customers are pleased with their 5G performance because they are fortunate to never leave their providers’ 5G UW or 5G+ networks.
Finally, the speeds mentioned in these reports should not be interpreted as the highest speeds available on any carrier’s network. Peak 5G speeds of far over 1Gbps have been reported by many T-Mobile and Verizon subscribers. This is especially true for mmWave coverage, although 1Gbps is not out of the question on C-band frequencies. T-Mobile has also been experimenting with 5G carrier aggregation (5G CA) technology, which may allow consumers to achieve mmWave-like 3Gbps speeds by combining longer-range midband frequencies.
Latency and 5G speed
As amazing as these download speeds appear on paper, the reality is that most smartphone users do not require the vast amounts of data that would necessitate them. Consider that even a 4K UHD video stream typically requires only 25-40Mbps. The major impact of 5G on mobile devices is not download rates, but latency.
Latency is the amount of time it takes to establish connections over a digital communication network, and it is a far more essential characteristic for how we generally use our smartphones. Surfing the web, chatting through instant messaging apps, and gaming, for example, all rely on dozens or even hundreds of individual connections exchanging very small bits of data. The fastest download speeds won’t assist if each connection takes longer to establish, just as having the fastest jet plane in the world to carry a parcel won’t help if the crew takes an unreasonable amount of time loading it up and getting it off the runway.
“The arrival of 5G will undoubtedly bring higher speeds for end users — but those speeds will vary depending on how operators design their networks and how many users are on the network,” said Els Baert, director of marketing and communications at NetComm, in an interview. “Although 5G will be able to deliver higher speeds, the main difference end users will notice will be the extra-low latency on 5G compared to 3G or 4G — this will open up new applications in the Internet of Things space.”
According to a white paper from the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance, which helped set standards, 5G networks should have a latency of 10ms in general and 1ms in specific circumstances where lower latency is required. According to the research, “data rates up to 1Gbps should be supported in certain specific environments, such as indoor offices, while at least 50Mbps should be available everywhere.”
The good news is that having the fastest 5G download speeds isn’t required for these shorter latencies. In fact, despite having slower speeds, Verizon frequently tops Opensignal’s reports on 5G gaming experiences. According to Ookla’s findings, Verizon and T-Mobile are also neck and neck in terms of median multi-server latency, which evaluates how long it takes to ping numerous servers around the internet.
How fast will 5G be in 2023?
Although 5G service and phones are now widely accessible, they are not the speedy replacement for 4G that many had hoped for, and there is a fair likelihood that it will never fully live up to the hype, at least not for those who define success by raw download speeds.
Even today, there are pockets where you can get mind-blowing multi-gigabit download speeds, but those are rare exceptions, and while they’ll likely become more common, they’ll always be offset by slower 5G in congested mid-band areas and, of course, low-band 5G zones where you’ll notice minor speed improvements at best. Carriers just aren’t going to build the millions of towers required to enable ultrafast 5G performance everywhere in the United States, and recent market reports indicate that average 5G speeds are plateauing at 200Mbps.
What matters isn’t the sheer speed, but rather the various benefits that 5G delivers, such as low latency, which will make our smartphones seem much more responsive and allow technology like driverless cars to exchange data almost instantly. Furthermore, as 4G/LTE gradually fades away, low-band 5G frequencies will no longer have to contend with sharing the digital highway, resulting in faster speeds for people who reside or travel in less populous areas covered solely by low-band 5G.