But T-Mobile subscribers will need to keep their expectations in check. As with 5G announcements from other U.S. carriers in recent months, T-Mobile’s new data service has a few gotchas.
The good news: It should work just about anywhere in the state. T-Mobile claims its 5G network will cover about 200 million people around the country — including the vast majority of Minnesotans. The carrier said it covers more than 1 million square miles, and about 5,000 U.S. cities and towns — including nearly 300 in this state.
T-Mobile is offering 5G at no extra cost — that is, on par with users of its 4G LTE service in places where 5G is not yet operational.
But here’s the bad news: Users shouldn’t expect to see dramatically faster speeds compared to LTE, at least for the moment. Speed increases of about 20 percent should be typical in Minnesota, according to T-Mobile spokesman Steven Carlson.
This assumes subscribers are using the right kinds of phones — and that’s another gotcha, for now. Only two T-Mobile phones are compatible with the 5G network. And neither model — the Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G and the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren — will be available for purchase until Friday.
Phone selection looks to improve next year, when more than a dozen additional 5G-compatible models are due to be released, Carlson said.
NO 5G PARADISE YET
“5G” refers to the fifth-generation of cellular-wireless service in this country, but it is not a single technology — It’s a hodgepodge of them. A variety of 5G technologies offered up by the big-four wireless carriers — AT&T, Sprint and Verizon along with T-Mobile — have received endless hype.But, for now, none is able to offer 5G nirvana: blazingly fast speeds across great distances with signals that aren’t easily blocked by building walls or tree branches.
Verizon, the only other carrier to offer 5G in Minnesota for now, has speed going for it. It’s “highband” 5G signal — called mmWave — has performance often comparable to residential broadband. But mmWave range is limited, and is readily disrupted by physical obstacles.
For now, Verizon’s 5G service is limited to portions of Minneapolis and St. Paul, with light-pole antennas placed closely together to compensate for the poor signal range and difficulty penetrating foliage and manmade structures. The service is operational in more than a dozen other cities, with more on the way.
T-Mobile’s “lowband” service is better able to cover wide swaths of territory, which makes it suitable for rural service, and has less trouble penetrating house walls for those who have had difficulty getting an indoor signal. T-Mobile can credibly claim it has the first nationwide 5G network. But it’s slower.
T-Mobile also has been deploying mmWave, but only in a handful of U.S. cities that don’t yet include the Twin Cities.
AT&T, meanwhile, said it plans to deploy nationwide 5G via lowband tech, along with highband mmWave for dense urban areas.
‘LAYER CAKE’ STRATEGY
As part of what Carlson calls a “layer cake” strategy, T-Mobile also plans to deploy a kind of “midband” 5G service that is a compromise — faster than T-Mobile’s lowband offering and with better range than highband mmWave.But, for T-Mobile to offer midband service, its pending merger with Sprint needs to go through — Sprint currently has that technology, and T-Mobile does not. Minnesota is among a number of U.S. states that have voiced opposition to the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.
What average consumers should infer from all of this: 5G isn’t quite ready for prime time. Top hardware maker Apple does not even offer an iPhone model with any kind of 5G — though that’s rumored to be on its to-do list for 2020.
But, looking a few years down the road, 5G appears poised to revolutionize cellular-wireless service — if and when carriers figure out how to offer a compelling blend of coverage and performance across the country.
©2019 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
