T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular Win 3.45 GHz Spectrum for 5G

Last November, T-Mobile invested nearly $3 billion in the FCC’s Auction 110. This secured them an additional 21 MHz of mid-band spectrum, which they are now using to cover areas with their Ultra Capacity 5G service. These areas will provide service to around 184 million people across the United States.  

Technically speaking, this mid-band service is running off 3.45 GHz and it’s ideal for 5G. This is because it has a good balance of coverage and capacity. Users can identify the better connection on their smartphones when the “5G UC” icon pops up next to the signal on the smartphone. 

In today’s announcement T-Mobile’s President of Technology, Neville Ray said, “While Verizon and AT&T remain locked in a 5G race for second place, we’ll use this additional spectrum to take our 5G network to the next level.”

While its competitors were arguing about the C-Band and possible risks with aircraft tools, T-Mobile was quick to deploy the 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum it acquired in the merger with Sprint. Thanks to their hard work the carrier estimates that 310 million people are covered by T-Mobile’s 5G network. Now, 210 million of those people are covered by its Ultra Capacity 5G. Their next plans are to bring Ultra Capacity 5G to 260 million people this year and 300 million in 2023.

U.S. Cellular also boasted about its 3.45 GHz winnings today. A company announcement said, “Combining mid-band purchases of CBRS spectrum in Auction 105 and C-band in Auction 107 with the spectrum acquired in recently-completed Auction 110, U.S. Cellular will have mid-band spectrum in the great majority of its operating footprint, and over 80% of subscribers will be covered with mid-band spectrum depths of 100 MHz or more.”

In Auction 110 U.S. Cellular purchased 380 licenses covering 97% of its subscribers. They also spent over $579 million. In comparison, AT&T spent the most in the auction, spending over $9.1 billion. Dish Networks spent $7.3 billion; T-Mobile spent nearly $3 billion; and Three Forty-Five Spectrum LLC spent over $1.3 billion.

“We know that to offer an exceptional 5G experience, we need all three layers of the 5G spectrum cake – low, mid and high band. And now with our successful participation in Auctions 105, 107 and 110, U.S. cellular has achieved its mid-band position objectives,” said U.S. Cellular CEO Laurent Therivel, in a statement.

AT&T Offers New Unlimited Data Plans and Discounts, Only at Walmart

AT&T is now offering a new data plan, as well as discounts on existing plans and new phones. The new data plan, called “Unlimited Max,” is a prepaid plan that is available only at Walmart. It comes with unlimited high-speed 5G data, available HD streaming, unlimited talk and text, unlimited text from the U.S. to over 230 countries and a 25GB mobile hotspot.

The plan is moderately priced at $55 per month and does not require AutoPay. It does, however, require a device purchase and in-store activation on a new single line.

This plan comes in around the same price as other prepaid offers with 5G plans that do not offer HD streaming options. These include Metro by T-Mobile’s $50 per month plan, Mint Mobile’s $45 per month plan (for three months), Cricket’s $55 per month plan and Visible by Verizon’s $45 per month plan ($35 with a promo code). Even AT&T’s lowest-priced unlimited 5G plan, available outside of Walmart, does NOT come with HD streaming and will cost you $65 per month.

AT&T is also offering its other prepaid plans at a discount if they are activated at Walmart. These include Unlimited and Unlimited Plus.

AT&T Unlimited includes:

  • Unlimited high-speed data with 5G
  • Unlimited talk and text
  • Unlimited text from the U.S. to over 230 countries
  • A 5GB mobile hotspot
  • Unlimited talk, text and data between the U.S., Mexico and Canada (limit 25GB in Canada; 5G in the U.S. only)
  • Standard definition streaming

The Unlimited plan is $50 per month and requires a new single line. AT&T also notes that it may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy.

Unlimited Max Plus includes:

  • Unlimited high-speed data with 5G
  • Unlimited talk and text
  • Unlimited text from the U.S. to 230+ countries
  • 35GB mobile hotspot
  • HD streaming available
  • Unlimited talk, text, and data in and between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada (limit 25GB in Canada; 5G in the U.S. only)
  • International calling from the U.S. (500 minutes to 30+ countries)

With the Unlimited Max Plus plan, AT&T notes that data will not be slowed down, regardless of how much data is used. This plan requires a device purchase and in-store activation on a new single line. The cost of Unlimited Max Plus is $65 per month.

Exclusive Prepaid Phone Offerings at Walmart

Prepaid phones are now also being offered at discounts. Included makes and models are:

  • Motorola moto g play for $9.88 ($49.88 without in-store activation)
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s for $19.88 ($59.88 without in-store activation)
  • Samsung Galaxy A13 LTE for $59.00 ($129 without in-store activation)
  • Motorola moto g stylus for $49.88 ($99.88 without in-store activation)

iPhones are also available at certain Walmart locations:

  • iPhone 11 for $199 ($299 without in-store activation)
  • iPhone SE 3rd generation for $249 ($349 without in-store activation)

You can also find three, very affordable 5G devices available at Walmart from AT&T; however, these 5G smartphones are not discounted:

  • AT&T Radiant Max 5G at $109
  • Samsung Galaxy A14 5G for $179
  • Motorola moto g 5G for $99.88

FAA Allows AT&T, Verizon to Turn on More 5G Towers

Announced Friday, The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it has agreed that Verizon Wireless and AT&T can safely turn on additional towers for their C-Band 5G deployment.

“Through continued technical collaboration, the FAA, Verizon, and AT&T have agreed on steps that will enable more aircraft to safely use key airports while also enabling more towers to deploy 5G service,” the FAA said in a statement. The FAA said more precise data about the exact location of wireless transmitters allowed it “to determine that it is possible to safely and more precisely map the size and shape of the areas around airports where 5G signals are mitigated, shrinking the areas where wireless operators are deferring their antenna activations.”

The FAA had imposed flight restrictions as a result of new 5G service possibly causing interference with aircraft altimeter tools (something pilots use to help land in inclement weather). Verizon and AT&T originally disputed the FAA’s warnings, but they twice agreed to delay launching new 5G. They also temporarily delayed it around 50 US airports even as they began offering the service in many U.S. cities on Jan. 19.

The FAA said that it took steps to reach this agreement after receiving details from the telecommunications companies about the location of wireless transmitters. The data helped it to better map areas around airports where the new high-speed 5G service won’t hinder the ability of planes to land during poor weather.

Now that the dispute has come to a head, the FAA has cleared most types of airline planes to operate around 5G signals, saying that their height-measuring devices, radio altimeters, are safe from radio interference.

Inseego 4G/5G Routers Now Available at 5Gstore

Think back to the first time you saw or used a mobile WiFi hotspot. That’s where our new partner, Inseego got its start. For the past 25 years, they’ve been leading the way by creating entirely new types of devices that allow users to connect wherever they are. 

By staying at the front of innovation, Inseego has earned the trust of leading wireless operators, technology titans, business users, government agencies and consumers.

From 2G to 5G, they’ve been through it all. In the 1990s, they started with Industry’s First Modems for Mobile Broadband.

In the 2000s,  they invented MiFi® hotspots, enabled the First Cellular Amazon® Kindle®, and the First USB Memory Stick Modem Combos for nationwide and global use. 

In the 2010s, they came out with the First Touchscreen Mobile Hotspot, with Advanced Enterprise Features and were known to have the “Highest Performance in the Market.”

Now, Inseego has released its First Commercial Mobile Hotspots and its First Complete 5G Portfolio. This includes the S2000e Enterprise 5G, FX2000e Enterprise 5G, FW2000e Enterprise 5G (Outdoor), and the FG2000e Enterprise 5G.

Inseego also invents new technologies, which make their products work more efficiently. The company holds key patents for antenna designs, thermal performance, quick response algorithms and other know-how that sets them apart from the rest of the industry. They also work with industry leaders to design, develop, test and deploy successful, end-to-end solutions.

Something else we really favor Inseego for is the simple fact that they are designed and developed in the USA. Per Inseego, “That translates into the highest quality, security, performance and reliability that service providers, enterprises and government users demand.”

We’re happy to announce that we will be carrying these new 5G products along with a LTE solution, at 5Gstore – most of which we have available today! So let us not delay our introduction any longer. 

First, for 4G LTE support only, look at the compact Skyus 160. With a small, rugged design and multi-carrier support, it keeps you connected almost anywhere for both primary and failover communications. Its Cat 6 LTE modem supports speeds up to 300 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload. It also comes with a built-in battery for backup, so the Skyus 160 can support your most important workloads. 

Popular use case applications include mobile applications like creating a vehicle hotspot, setting up a temporary job site, or working from home. It’s also ideal for fixed environments such as SD-WAN installations for retail locations or branch offices.

Next, we have the S2000e Enterprise 5G. The Inseego Wavemaker™ 5G industrial gateway S2000e brings the best of 5G to a wide range of enterprise environments, from factories and warehouses to ports, fleets and smart city networks. This powerful, high-performance gateway can deliver multi-gigabit speeds, low latency and secure, reliable connections for facilities and distributed operations in virtually any location, from urban centers to rural areas. Use the S2000e to bring 5G to an existing router, or to connect remote surveillance cameras, kiosks, digital displays and other IoT endpoints.

Combining six antenna ports and 4×4 MU-MIMO with Inseego’s proprietary thermal mitigation technology, it delivers sustained high throughput even at the edge of the network. The S2000e provides ethernet, USB and I/O ports along with multiple power options and mounting options, offering the flexibility for almost any deployment scenario. 

Pair your S2000e with the Inseego mobile app and simplify self-installation. Inseego Connect™ cloud management makes it easy to configure, monitor and maintain the S2000e remotely. With unsurpassed RF performance and device-to-cloud intelligence, the S2000e industrial gateway opens the door to many new business solutions.

Whether you’re an operator providing high-performance fixed wireless access to your small business and residential customers, or an enterprise organization with distributed offices and remote employees, the FX2000 series is a great solution. It works well in homes, retail stores, restaurants, branch offices, medical clinics, dormitories, apartments and more.

In particular, check out the FX2000e Enterprise 5G. This is a compact indoor router that delivers fast, reliable 5G/LTE broadband to homes and businesses. It offers support for private networks, including CBRS, and boasts Wi-Fi 6 technology and ethernet with secure connections for up to 30 devices. A host of smart security and management features let users connect with confidence in their data privacy and protection.

The Inseego Mobile app makes it easy to find the best location to set up and remotely manage settings like network name and password. Users can also use the Inseego Connect™ platform to monitor, configure and troubleshoot a single FX2000 or an entire deployment of FX2000 series devices from one user-friendly platform. You can set alarm rules, schedule and run reports for data usage, signal quality, and alarm history, and group devices together to push widespread configurations.

The FX2000e offers dual SIM support and allows for auto-switching between SIMs based on signal strength, data usage, service availability, and quality. Multi-carrier firmware allows the FX2000e to be used on most major global carriers.

Look at the FW2000e Enterprise 5G (Outdoor) for more rural and suburban customers who might be at the edge of network coverage. Or, use this to provide 5G connectivity for private enterprise networks. In either case, the FW2000 series outdoor Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) uses high-gain directional antennas to extend the reach of carrier networks, providing 5G fixed wireless access (along with 4G LTE fallback at LTE CAT 22 speeds) to serve customers in more places.

The intuitive Inseego Mobile app makes it easy to find the strongest network signal and best mounting location for the FW2000 series outdoor CPEs. Once up and running the, IP67-rated FW2000 series is designed to stand up to harsh weather conditions and temperature extremes while protecting your network with enterprise-grade security.

Lastly, we have the FG2000e Enterprise 5G. The Inseego Wavemaker™ indoor router FG2000 series delivers blazing-fast internet access to homes and businesses worldwide with breakthrough 5G and 4G LTE speeds. From fast streaming to lag-free video conferencing, the FG2000 series delivers a superb 5G user experience with best-of-network performance anywhere.

The FG2000 series offers support for private networks, including CBRS, and boasts Wi-Fi 6 technology with gigabit-class data speeds with secure connections for up to 128 Wi-Fi devices. An optional RJ11 port provides VoLTE-enabled high-definition voice service. A host of smart security and management features let users connect with confidence in their data privacy and protection.

The FG2000e offers dual SIM support and allows for auto-switching between SIMs based on signal strength, data usage, service availability, and quality. Multi-carrier firmware allows the FG2000e to be used on most major global carriers. The Inseego Mobile app and Inseego Connect™ platform is also available with this device. 

If you have any interest in mobile broadband, fixed wireless access, IIoT (Industrial IoT), Enterprise SaaS, or Edge Computing, look no further than to the specialty products from Inseego.  

Contact our sales team today if you have any questions!

Verizon 5G Map with Ultra Wide

Verizon recently updated its Verizon 5G nationwide coverage map with its new “Ultra Wideband” C-Band coverage. We now know exactly where Verizon says more than 90 million Americans will be able to get this new C-Band service. 

According to Verizon Wireless, it offers two types of 5G service: “5G Ultra Wideband and 5G Nationwide.

  • 5G Ultra Wideband is Verizon’s fastest 5G. According to Verizon, 5G Ultra Wideband experiences speeds up to twn times faster and respond quicker than 4G, thanks to its access to both 5G high bands and low bands. 5G Ultra Wideband speeds range from 300 Mbps to 1 Gbps.
  • 5G Nationwide runs alongside 4G LTE; it delivers a similar experience to Verizon’s 4G LTE network, which provides a convenient, reliable, and widely available 5G network.

Only Verizon’s top Unlimited plans provide access to 5G Ultra Wideband and 5G Nationwide. All other plans provide access to 5G Nationwide only.

Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband Coverage Map Accuracy

According to some users, Verizon’s updated 5G Ultra Wideband coverage map isn’t very accurate now. These users found that C-Band was available in some of the indicated areas on the coverage map but was non-existent in others. The current Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband coverage map seems to be more of a projection of where C-Band is and where it will eventually be in the near future. Then again, coverage maps generally can’t meet the level we’d like them to be at, which is to tell us how good the coverage is here or there. 

Aside from allowing phones access to double or triple LTE speeds, Verizon plans to utilize the new airwaves to expand its $50/month wireless home internet offering. Coverage for wireless home internet won’t be available everywhere and will depend on available network capacity.

Verizon Rural C-Band Coverage

To 5Gstore’s surprise, there appears to be C-Band coverage in more rural areas than we’ve seen before, including in some areas that are located hundreds of miles away from large cities. These include areas in southwest Indiana and small towns outside of New York City, as well as some remote areas in Arkansas and Alabama. 

5G Exclusion Zones

“Exclusion zones” (or “buffer zones”), to which Verizon agreed with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), are apparent in Verizon’s 5G coverage map around major airports. Major airports and their grounds, such as New York’s LaGuardia, Chicago’s Midway and Dallas’ Love Field, appear to have 5G coverage. However, there are some exclusions in varying directions.

Check back often to 5Gstore! We will provide you with the most recent Verizon 5G coverage maps available, as well as the information you need to stay connected.

T-Mobile Comes Out on Top of OpenSignal’s Latest Report

OpenSignal is known for its mobile analytics. Each year they release a few reports about the major cellular carriers’ networks. They take results gathered from millions of devices, which result in billions of measurements. The latest data gathered, which was collected between September and December of last year, shows T-Mobile is on top once again. 

Analysis was done in 43 states, as well as the capital of Washington, D.C., for each of the carriers strictly on their 5G network experience. The report covered: Availability, Reach, Games Experience, Voice App Experience, Download Speed and Upload Speed. 

T-Mobile was not the only winner though. Verizon also picked up the categories of Games Experience and Voice App Experience. Sadly, for AT&T, they didn’t win any categories, but still presented good results in comparison to its competitors. It’s no wonder given that T-Mobile has not had to deal with the issues surrounding C-Band that AT&T and Verizon have. This service was originally delayed, then limited to certain locations – all because of possible interference with aircraft tools that also work around the C-Band spectrum. 

While Verizon has the best user experience, T-Mobile dominates the speed categories. In fact, they’ve been at the top of the Download Speed category for six times in a row and Upload Speeds for the fifth time in a row. 

T-Mobile also won the Availability and Reach categories. It’s clear their lead on getting mid-band service out to 200 million users was a success. This is what they have dubbed their “Ultra Capacity 5G” service. It relies on the 2.5 Ghz band, so it is unaffected by the FAA concerns that have affected the C-Band. 

Now let’s take a closer look at how all the carriers fared in each category, at the National Analysis level. 

Note that each of the OpenSignal charts listed below have brackets at the end of their respective graphs. These brackets represent confidence intervals. Per OpenSignal, “For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple operator winners. In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars. In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.”

  1. 5G Availability

“Opensignal’s 5G Availability compares the amount of time 5G users spent with an active 5G connection — the higher the percentage, the more time that users on a network were actually connected to 5G.”

The brackets |-| represent confidence intervals.
  1. 5G Reach

“5G Reach represents the proportion of locations where 5G users have connected to 5G out of all the locations those users have visited, on a scale of 0-10. This measure complements our existing 5G Availability metric, which represents the proportion of time 5G users spent connected to 5G.”

The brackets |-| represent confidence intervals.
  1. 5G Games Experience

“Opensignal’s 5G Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s 5G network. Measured on a scale of 0-100, it analyzes how the multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter.”

The brackets |-| represent confidence intervals.
  1. 5G Voice App Experience

“Opensignal’s 5G Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger etc. — when users are connected to a 5G network.”

The brackets |-| represent confidence intervals.
  1. 5G Download Speed

“T-Mobile’s 5G Download Speed continues on its upward trend as our users on the carrier now clock average speeds of 150 Mbps, up from 118.7 Mbps in the previous report. A year ago, using T-Mobile our users saw a 5G Download Speed score of 58.1 Mbps, but it has consistently increased since then due to T-Mobile’s ongoing deployment of 2.5 GHz spectrum. The carrier has been increasing both its population coverage, as well as the amount of spectrum deployed on that band.”

The brackets |-| represent confidence intervals.
  1. 5G Upload Speed

“T-Mobile keeps hold of the 5G Upload Speed award with a score of 17.9 Mbps, which is 1.8 Mbps faster than what our users observed in our October report. Verizon places second in 5G Upload Speed with a score of 14.1 Mbps, which represents a 0.3 Mbps decrease from our previous report, while AT&T’s score increased from 9.7 Mbps to 9.9 Mbps.”

The brackets |-| represent confidence intervals.

Analysis was also done at the regional level, which you’ll see outlined below.

Testing Verizon C-Band in New York City

Verizon’s new 5G network is live and PCMag just tested it out in New York City. In summary, C-Band made their connections about 50% faster, once they were able to find the signal. They also noted less congestion on the network, which is likely due to it still being so new. 

Starting this past Wednesday, Verizon launched its new form of 5G in 46 cities. AT&T did also, but only in eight cities. 

While PCMag reports the Verizon service being noticeably improved, it didn’t measure up to T-Mobile’s citywide “5G Ultra Capacity”— at least, not yet. T-Mobile currently has the most coverage in New York City and the best performance also in comparison to its competitors. 

Looking at reports from other cities, it seems that may not be the same as in New York City. Per PCMag’s report, “Redditors are busy posting spectacular C-Band speeds, including 859Mbps down in Los Angeles, 586Mbps outside Pittsburgh, and 413Mbps in Indianapolis.”

In order to test the C-Band, the PCMag team used the new Ookla WIND software. This is a carrier-grade package that runs on altered Samsung Galaxy S21+ phones. WIND’s Pro version, which the company supplied for testing, shows all the details of frequency band use you could ever need. It also lets testers build complex setups with voice, data, text, and video tests.

Verizon’s C-Band was a little hard to find during the New York tests. They ended up being able to use C-Band only on sites in two cities – Forest Hills and Kew Gardens. In other locations like East Harlem, their phone had refused to connect to C-Band, despite Ookla having identified the location as having C-Band available. It’s possible that some connections are being blocked by the carrier, or perhaps something to do with technical interference.

PCMag also addressed the “exclusion zones” that carriers agreed to with the FAA. Some of the exclusion zones are around JFK and LaGuardia airports. These are some of the busiest airports among a part of the city that is populated by about 2.3 million people. This is the same case for areas like Chicago, Dallas, and San Diego. Folks here unfortunately don’t have the benefits of the new 5G because of interference risks with aircraft altimeters

Per Verizon, the exclusion zones are a rectangle 2 miles long extending from the end of each airport runway. In one case during the tests, they were unable to find C-Band in an arc spanning from 4 miles southeast to 3 miles southwest of the end of the LaGuardia runway. That area covers many of Queens’ densest neighborhoods. Unexpectedly, though, they found more millimeter-wave in the exclusion zone than they expected to. 

“While the super-fast, short-range technology didn’t blanket the area, it kept popping up here and there throughout Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside, and Elmhurst, giving a huge boost when I could find it,” the article reads. 

They continued, “I can’t tell if Verizon’s avoidance of neighborhoods closer to LaGuardia is about the exclusion zone, or just the vagaries of early network buildouts. But we can confirm that while there’s no C-Band coverage within 2 miles of the airport, there is definitely coverage between 3-4 miles away.”

So just how fast is 5G? 

PCMag’s tests shows the in most cases, the C-Band service was double the speeds of LTE. This is because 5G was made more efficient and spread across multiple airwaves, making it able to provide more speed with less congestion on the networks. 

The article explained this more technically. “C-Band roughly doubles the airwaves Verizon had available for use in our tests. In most of our tests, Verizon used 40-50MHz of 4G LTE spectrum. When its “nationwide” 5G was active, it added 10MHz of low-band 5G to that. C-Band trades out that 10Hz of low-band 5G for 60MHz of mid-band, resulting in 100-110MHz being used.”

In comparison to tests run with T-Mobile, Verizon was just a little less. T-Mobile generally used 40MHz of 4G LTE along with 80MHz of mid-band 5G, for a total of 120MHz.

Tests were split between the carriers’ 4G and 5G components. PCMag found that in T-Mobile’s tests, 75% of the speed came from 5G, while in Verizon’s tests, 45-55% came from 5G. They also noticed that for some unknown reason, “each megahertz of Verizon’s was slower than a megahertz of T-Mobile’s—something the bigger carrier is surely working on optimizing.”

They also discovered something rather odd. “A bunch of our C-Band results in Kew Gardens all congregated around 140Mbps down in a way that makes me think it was a configuration issue or cap, not the capability of the network.”

What about the reach of the C-Band service?

The tests performed by the PCMag team have already shown T-Mobile is faster than Verizon on their mid-band spectrums – T-Mobile at its 2.5GHz frequency and Verizon at the higher C-Band spectrum.   The real question now is, which carrier delivers more range? PCMag says, “But the fact is, urban networks in places like New York, Chicago, and Dallas are dense enough that the difference may not matter.”

The case in Queens, for example, Verizon’s network is so dense that sites don’t have to broadcast very high to be received. It’s the same for T-Mobile here, whose extremely dense network in Queens has sites that are often a quarter-mile from each other or less.

From their findings, PCMag believes the jury is still out in the battle of mid-band distance. Though it is clear that C-Band has enough reach so that carriers won’t need to put a site every few blocks. 

Do I need C-Band now?While C-Band is available now, it can only get better as Verizon continues to roll out service. “In many other cities, it appears to already be better; my experience in Queens looks like the low end of the C-Band experience,” said the author of the article. They added, “The C-Band boost will come primarily to places within half a mile to a mile of a Verizon cell site, so look up your location on cellmapper.net if you’re curious. It’ll also require a recent phone.”

T-Mobile Wins Big in New Ookla Performance Study

T-Mobile is boasting about its 5G service again, with an announcement that it came out on top in a new Ookla study. This measured things like 5G speed, performance and availability. In the announcement, they added that it would be moving forward with turning on its 5G carrier aggregation (CA), both with 2.5 GHz and 2.5 Ghz combined with 600 MHz. 

Ookla’s nationwide network performance analysis had T-Mobile at the top of all 6 categories. These include: fastest provider, latency, consistency, 5G performance, 5G availability and 5G consistency. Considering the 5G coverage T-Mobile has had in place compared to its competitors, it’s not much surprise they ruled here. This is in part thanks to their ability to rollout coverage on mid-band spectrum that isn’t causing interference risks like the C-Band is for AT&T and Verizon. 

According to an article from FierceWireless, the mid-band spectrum they are using (2.5 GHz), which was acquired from Sprint, provides about 40% faster speeds. Currently, download speeds are running at a top average speed of 187 Mbps nationwide. According to T-Mobile, this is faster than most home WiFi connections, two times faster than Verizon 5G and over 2.5 times faster than AT&T 5G. More importantly, customers were more likely to connect to 5G than Verizon or AT&T customers. Again, this could simply be due to the delays both carriers have experienced with their 5G rollouts. 

With regards to the 5G carrier aggregation, this combines two channels of 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum for greater speed and capacity. It’s much like bonding in this case, but happens within the one carrier’s network. This should allow for less congestion as there will be more service to go around. 

5G standards set the maximum bandwidth for a sub-6 GHz 5G channel at 100 MHz of spectrum. That is a lot of capacity, but with 5G CA, the operator is able to provide customers with more than 100 MHz of 2.5 GHz Ultra Capacity 5G spectrum, starting with 120 MHz in many places. So, customers in those areas will see a significant boost in speed and performance.

According to T-Mobile, tests have been completed that show 2.5 GHz 5G CA can improve speeds by about 20%. Also, devices reach speeds greater than 100 Mbps twice as often as those without 5G carrier aggregation. In addition, T-Mobile noted that it’s expanded NR CA with 2.5 GHz and 600 MHz to cities across the country.

“These capabilities are live across much of T-Mobile’s network today for customers with the Samsung Galaxy S21 and another popular flagship device, becoming more broadly available – with additional devices – in the coming months,” said a T-Mobile representative.

T-Mobile also highlighted results of record-breaking 5G upload speeds with 5G Dual Connectivity. The test was done by Ericsson and Qualcomm. They found T-Mobile exceeded 1 Gbps on upload – 1005 Mbps, to be precise – by combining 2.5 GHz spectrum with millimeter wave.

“Today’s wins confirm what over a dozen other studies have found in the last year: T-Mobile 5G is #1 in performance and/or coverage,” said T-Mobile President of Technology Neville Ray in a statement. “Our competitors bet on the wrong spectrum for 5G. Now, they’re years behind and scrambling to catch up. We’ll keep blazing ahead, reaching more and more people with Ultra Capacity 5G and spearheading new technologies. This is what you get when you combine the best damn 5G network with the hardest working team in the industry.”

5G rollout continues today, despite FAA concerns

Today is finally the day that Verizon is rolling out their 5G Ultra Wideband (5G UWB) network. Buffer zones around 50 airports have been enabled in preparation. This comes after much back and forth consulting, and arguing, between the FAA, the FCC, AT&T, and Verizon. 

While things seem to have settled down between the companies, tensions at airports are quite high as some flights are being delayed or canceled with fear of potential risks. This is because of the closeness between the frequencies 5G is running on – what’s called the C-Band spectrum – and the frequencies used in aircrafts. There have been concerns of interference risks with aircraft landing tools – specifically the airplane’s altimeter, which helps the pilot verify distance between the plane and the ground. This is mainly beneficial in situations where the weather is poor and tools are needed to help the pilots land safely. 

AT&T, who also agreed to delay and limit their 5G rollout, on the same C-Band spectrum, commented recently. 

“At our sole discretion we have voluntarily agreed to temporarily defer turning on a limited number of towers around certain airport runways as we continue to work with the aviation industry and the FAA to provide further information about our 5G deployment,” AT&T said in a statement Tuesday.

Verizon followed AT&T saying, “We have voluntarily decided to limit our 5G network around airports. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and our nation’s airlines have not been able to fully resolve navigating 5G around airports, despite it being safe and fully operational in more than 40 other countries.”

CEOs from American, United, Delta and seven other major carriers also warned of “significant” disruptions in the country’s aviation system if the 5G rollout continued as planned.

In a letter, U.S. airline leaders wrote to government officials Monday asking that the wireless carriers not deploy 5G within two miles of runways at certain airports.

“This will allow 5G to be deployed while avoiding harmful impacts on the aviation industry, traveling public, supply chain, vaccine distribution, our workforce and broader economy,” the CEOs wrote.

The FAA warned pilots won’t be able to use radio altimeters to land at 88 airports closest to Verizon and AT&T’s 5G towers. Earlier this month, the FAA and wireless carriers agreed to implement “buffer zones” around 50 airports across the country to try to mitigate the issue.

Airline officials, however, said this is not enough. United Airlines said the current plan will have “devastating” impacts on its operation, impacting an estimated 1.25 million of the carrier’s passengers and at least 15,000 flights.

“We won’t compromise on safety – full stop,” United said in a statement.

Captain Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines 737 pilot and a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, also called the rollout “unsafe.”

“We’re not going to fly the airplane unless it’s safe,” Tajer told ABC News. “But putting that added distraction of other systems going wrong close to the ground is not the way you run a safety culture.”

AT&T and Verizon have been touting that the 5G C-Band spectrum has been proven safe in about 40 other countries. However, what is generally missed, is the fact that the power of the 5G signals in these other countries is much lower than what we have planned here in the United States. With this increased power and unknowns surrounding how aircrafts will be affected, it’s clear why the FAA is so concerned. 

In a statement, AT&T made clear its frustration with the federal government, writing in part: “We are frustrated by the FAA’s inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it do so in a timely manner. We are launching our advanced 5G services everywhere else as planned with the temporary exception of this limited number of towers.”

When asked why the FAA did not act over the past two years, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “There will be lots of time to look back and see how we got here. And I know many of you will do that. And, of course, that is understandable. But right now, over the next 24, or less than 24 hours, what we’re focused on is trying to come to a solution that will minimize travel — you know disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations — on our economic recovery.”

President Biden thanked Verizon and AT&T for the delay, saying in a statement, “This agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90 percent of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled.”

The president said the agreement “protects flight safety and allows aviation operations to continue without significant disruption and will bring more high-speed internet options to millions of Americans.”

Adding 5G to Glass Wearables

Imagine a work environment, such as a large office or warehouse, where your workers can go mainly hands-free. That’s the future using 5G connected glass wearables. Whether they be for technicians and engineers, or warehouse workers and other remote employees, they can provide the benefit of fast speeds and low latency for real time, high definition video calls. This also allows developers to add more robust augmented reality features. The up front cost could be quite high for this technology (especially at this stage), but this could save companies thousands of dollars by not having to send someone on site to troubleshoot an issue. 

“5G Edge is what really allows us to drive a lot more power and capability to these glasses, because we have orders of magnitude greater processing power up in the cloud,” T.J. Vitolo, who leads the XR (augmented and virtual reality) organization at Verizon, told PYMNTS in a recent interview. “Through 5G, we have extremely low latency which allows for the rapid delivery of assets that allow for a very seamless experience of the glass that’s much more capable of what they can do today as a standalone device.” 

Verizon Wireless, who also offers 5G business class Internet options, announced that it will soon offer BlueJeans Meetings preloaded on the Google’s Glass Enterprise Edition 2 glass wearables, which the carrier sells. Users can pair that with a Google Pixel 6 phone for added benefits. The phone will serve as a 5G mobile hotspot, enabling the glass wearables to utilize 5G’s low latency, and users to work hands-free while using high-definition video. 

“From a customer perspective, the idea of not having to find some sort of connectivity to those glasses via WiFi, especially when in a remote scenario, is great with Google,” Vitolo said. “It quickly pairs to the phone and goes right to the 5G network.” 

The BlueJeans Meetings video conferencing app allows a user to broadcast what they see directly to the viewer. Vitolo said the primary use case for this experience is a remote support scenario. This is exactly what we use it here for at the 5Gstore. It allows us to communicate with technicians and customers alike, making the remote experience more personable. 

“Field workers, factory workers, whatever might be the case, that have limited experience in things outside their domain are now able to troubleshoot, diagnose and fix things through remote support — remote support that’s guided by a bit more than audiovisual feedback, but with some additional tools that help for a better collaborative experience versus just a communication experience,” Vitolo said. 

BlueJeans Meetings also gives the remote viewer some control using a PC. This includes turning on a flashlight on the glasses as well as using the digital zoom within the camera to zoom in on items in view of the glasses. 

“This gives the support assistant in the back office that much more flexibility to help understand the scene or the information that’s being broadcasted by the end client,” Vitolo said. 

“With software, hardware and connectivity combined in one product, users of this package available through Verizon won’t have to discover and acquire the components themselves and then try to make them work,” he added. 

“Simplicity is the key,” Vitolo said. “We want to take a little bit of insanity out of that equation and really help our customers buy one product and just get the ball rolling.” 

Looking ahead, Vitolo said that with the capabilities of 5G, developers could add mixed reality use cases to these devices. For example, with augmented reality, if a technician working on a site needed to unplug one of five wires, the support personnel in the back office could highlight the correct wire, and that highlight would be anchored to the object. 

“The idea is that now it feels like someone is pointing over my shoulder, someone is there with me giving me explicit direction,” Vitolo said. “We want to continue to create that bond between the remote worker and the back-office support personnel in order to have the feeling as though you’re there supporting in person — and augmented reality is a big, big part of that.” 

For those not quite needing 5G services at this time, check out Verizon’s Business Internet plans offered for LTE. Let the 5Gstore team work together with the Verizon team on getting your business the service it requires. Whether you have one temporary site, a large-scale deployment or just need backup for critical operations, LTE Business Internet offers a fast, fixed wireless internet connection that you can easily self-install at any location where you have LTE coverage. The device is even portable, so you can take it on the go as needed. There’s no annual contract to sign into and you get 24/7 support – what more can you ask for?

To learn more about Verizon Business Internet (VZBI) and how you could qualify for an exclusive 5Gstore promotion with up to $400 in cash rebates, contact us today!