T-Mobile launched their nationwide 5G service recently, and reviews from early adopters are coming in.
Unlike Verizon’s millimeter wave 5G network – which has been launched in a couple dozen cities but is only usable in very limited areas within those cities – T-Mobile is using a lower frequency, which provides much better coverage but slower speeds. Even on the lower frequency though, 5G should be significantly faster than 4G LTE. T-Mobile’s marketing has indicated that 5G users should see speeds around 20% faster than LTE.
A reviewer from Tech Junkie tested in multiple locations in the Denver area using T-Mobile’s OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren Android phone, and the 20% speed bump over LTE proved accurate in most locations. The latency over 5G is significantly better than LTE (in one test, the reviewer saw ping times of just 37ms over 5G while latency over LTE was 77ms), which makes a big difference for things like video chatting, gaming, and other applications that benefit from real-time response.