has your data use risen with a 5g phone?

[CarLuver]

i am shopping 5g phones now. one of the interesting things i have read is that with 5g phones data use usually goes. this usually facilitates a need to increase ones plan if not enough data.

So you guys with 5 g phones, did you see an increase use of data when you got a 5 g phone?

 

[Skippy722]

i am shopping 5g phones now. one of the interesting things i have read is that with 5g phones data use usually goes. this usually facilitates a need to increase ones plan if not enough data.

So you guys with 5 g phones, did you see an increase use of data when you got a 5 g phone?

The only way it’ll consume more data is if it’s getting faster speeds on 5G and your YouTube videos or whatever are playing at a higher quality or you’re just using it more. Mine stayed consistent.

 

[kschachn]

Not really. I was getting consistent 100Mb speeds with LTE, yes 5G is faster but pretty meaningless.

 

[Skippy722]

Not really. I was getting consistent 100Mb speeds with LTE, yes 5G is faster but pretty meaningless.

Same here… though when I can pick up UC (ultra capacity as T-Mobile calls it) it flies! Kind of meaningless on a smartphone, but big numbers makes the monkey part of my brain happy.

 

[JavierH19]

5g makes it easier to waste data. if you click a video on your phone it could buffer it more than 4g before you click out of it. But i could care less about 5g. was getting up to 152mbps down and 61 up on vz's lte and i live outside the city. As long as I have at least 2mbps up and down I'm fine. I've used 660kbps hotspot and it was fine. i could stream 480p perfectly and webpages only took a second or two more if they were picture heavy and that's not bad.

Beyond that there's no practical benefit. I'm not downloading massive apps or updates. Just music files or video streaming at 480-720p, loading maps, the weather and email. i don't do any phone gaming but if you do 5g hardly has any latency improvement over 4g in the real world. Carrier provided numbers that are designed to get you to buy a new expensive 5g phone and expensive plan are obviously gonna be inflated and cherrypicked to get you to jump.

 

[Cujet]

I'm not seeing any real difference in data use, or for that matter, real world speeds.

Sure, the speed test shows epic numbers. But here in Jupiter, FL, the same old infuriating lack of response exists. Often a search request never completes, regardless of whether it's 5G, LTE or 4G.

5G has not helped one bit.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

i am shopping 5g phones now. one of the interesting things i have read is that with 5g phones data use usually goes. this usually facilitates a need to increase ones plan if not enough data.

So you guys with 5 g phones, did you see an increase use of data when you got a 5 g phone?

I just finished shopping 5G phones and I can't see any reason why your data usage would go up outside of using more data such as streaming music, video in your car. With in-home Wifi it's almost inexcusable to use data in ones house these days.

5G itself is promising in the world of automotive tech and maybe home networking. The best plan I've found is Google Fi ($30/base plus $10/GB data with max monthly bill of $70). Google Fi runs on T-Mobile/Sprint/US Cellular and apparently because their phones use VPN it will attempt to save data by autologging on to nearby Wifi connections when possible.

 

[alarmguy]

5g makes it easier to waste data. if you click a video on your phone it could buffer it more than 4g before you click out of it. But i could care less about 5g. was getting up to 152mbps down and 61 up on vz's lte and i live outside the city. As long as I have at least 2mbps up and down I'm fine. I've used 660kbps hotspot and it was fine. i could stream 480p perfectly and webpages only took a second or two more if they were picture heavy and that's not bad.

Beyond that there's no practical benefit. I'm not downloading massive apps or updates. Just music files or video streaming at 480-720p, loading maps, the weather and email. i don't do any phone gaming but if you do 5g hardly has any latency improvement over 4g in the real world. Carrier provided numbers that are designed to get you to buy a new expensive 5g phone and expensive plan are obviously gonna be inflated and cherrypicked to get you to jump.

Agree with most of this, but for us, we prefer (just because) to have 15 Mbps as a min which AT&T gives us on LTE. (actually much faster than that in reality anyway)
Other than that, we will never notice the difference using a cell phone with 5g at the current time and 5 years into the future. Its all marketing at this point to sell products and make other cell phones "look" obsolete.

I do look forward to TMobile home internet with 5g or very good LTE, streaming speeds of over 100 preferably over 200 Mbps on our large TVs in 4k plus the other 25 devices in our home would be nice.

 

[Trav]

5G, we don't even have decent 4G here. I wish they would give this crap a rest and leave well enough alone, when they shut 3G down I have no phone that will get any reception.
I will not be getting a new Iphone or any other anytime soon as I only use it to deposit checks anyway now and I can do that over wifi. If I do eventually get one it will be an small old style with new tech, not a smart phone just a phone.

 

[Owen Lucas]

5G, we don't even have decent 4G here. I wish they would give this crap a rest and leave well enough alone, when they shut 3G down I have no phone that will get any reception.
I will not be getting a new Iphone or any other anytime soon as I only use it to deposit checks anyway now and I can do that over wifi. If I do eventually get one it will be an small old style with new tech, not a smart phone just a phone.

5G hasn't been rolled out yet completely and I don't think it ever will enough to make a difference for quite a while. Due to the shorter range of the 5G band, many more towers are needed per area than 4G.

When 5G first came out, there was a trial run at a football game, 1 transmitter wasn't enough to provide reception for all of the spectators.

I think 4G is here to stay with 5G being a turbo boost for urban areas. The higher speeds will come in useful but I don't think many need these high speeds just yet.

 

[SeaJay]

I use my phone to access data mostly at home via WiFi, so data use is not usually a concern for me. Retired my 5 year old phone yesterday and replaced it with a Moto Edge 5G. So far so good but time will tell.

 

[Zee09]

On my home cell where I do not watch any videos or music etc I seem to use 21GB of data average per month. I am already at 15gb now.

Not really sure how that figures but
I do use it for calls and texting for my business .

 

[CleanSump]

My use is either at home via wifi or in the car for addresses etc.
Occasionally I use it as an access point for my work tablet when there is no wifi I can use.

There is so little 5G around here that I turned it off. This saves a boatload of battery time since the phone isn't always trying to find a 5G tower. Believe it or not, that is a biggie on battery life. It went from about 6 hours to recharge to two days just by shutting off 5G. And since 5G is imaginary around here, it makes no difference to my speed or data usage.

 

[Rand]

Verizon 5g they use band sharing so they allocate 10% to 5g and 90% to 4g etc so its not much faster right now.
5g is much better at being efficient. and in general is the future its just not rolled out completely and choked off to
keep supporting high 4g speeds( on verizon)

When I had total wireless (verizon towers)
my 5g was often slower than 4g.(used more battery too)
if 5g was faster many times it would drop and change to 4g interrupting whatever i was doing
so... pretty worthless.

Now I just changed over to google fi (tmobile towers) 5g stays on and speeds are incredible.
out in the fringes ie middle of nowhere the service still works but slightly worse than verizon... only slightly though.
YMMV.. just my experience.

cost is 75$ or 81.73 all in for 3 phones unlimited (35GB/phone at full speed)
cost for 4 lines is about $86 all in.
cost for 2 lines is .... drumroll... $86.
google fi also includes free calling to and roaming in Canada and mexico(including data).
If anyone wants to see any speed tests I've done over the last year I'd be happy to post some up.

 

[alarmguy]

We are definitely using more data which I find surprising. It’s possible that maybe die to the fact that I find ourselves using our phones for more and more things.

For example a trip to Florida last month a pretty good eight hour trip each direction I streamed Apple music the entire time, so that’s 16 hours of streaming music. Plus the time that we were in Florida.
Throw in I was using a lot of data without connecting to the condominiums Wi-Fi net work as well. Typically I would connect but the darn 5G is so fast many times I didn’t bother.
I just repeated that on another trip to Florida but was more like a five hour trip each way and while we were there same deal.

So I can’t really say if it’s more use because of the Incredible Speeds and the use of Apple services which I have been without question using more, not only that but a new Apple iPhone 13 paired to an Apple Watch which is always running as well.

I suspect before the 5G before the iPhone 13 and before the Apple Watch we would’ve been using the same amount of data.

Cool thing is, with the T-Mobile 55+ plan, two lines actual payment less than $75 a month for unlimited everything that I could possibly ever want and more than I will ever need.
+2 free iPhone 13s, they’re not free if you take into account we had to give them our old phones which was an XR and 11

 

[Vil_Riker]

5g advertised by the carriers is a marketing gimmick. There is really no 5g in the US, what we have is 4gLTE+ where the phone is receiving data on more than one 4gLTE frequencies. That's the reason why ATT dropped the 3g voice - they needed these frequencies for the fake 5g. T-mobile has no issues with frequencies.

Data usage will likely go up because with the bandwidth bottleneck eased the streamed video resolution will likely go up on the phones. But the speed improvement is not substantial.

 

[kschachn]

5g advertised by the carriers is a marketing gimmick. There is really no 5g in the US, what we have is 4gLTE+ where the phone is receiving data on more than one 4gLTE frequencies. That's the reason why ATT dropped the 3g voice - they needed these frequencies for the fake 5g. T-mobile has no issues with frequencies.

Data usage will likely go up because with the bandwidth bottleneck eased the streamed video resolution will likely go up on the phones. But the speed improvement is not substantial.

?

 

[Vil_Riker]

?

Not All 5G Is the Same: All the Flavors and Names Explained

From 5G Ultra Wideband to 5G UC and 5G Plus, we'll break down every different flavor of 5G.

www.cnet.com

In effect, outside of some 5G-equipped stadiums, airports and arenas, these coverage areas may be no bigger than an intersection. One solution is to string more cellular radios, but in many places, that isn't an option. For now, think of it as a souped-up Wi-Fi hotspot.

 

[kschachn]

Right, so there really is true 5G coverage unlike what you said. Plus things have changed since October of last year when that article was written (until of course you changed the link).

We get pretty good actual 5G in the Milwaukee metropolitan area especially in the suburbs.

 

[alarmguy]

5g advertised by the carriers is a marketing gimmick. There is really no 5g in the US, what we have is 4gLTE+ where the phone is receiving data on more than one 4gLTE frequencies. That's the reason why ATT dropped the 3g voice - they needed these frequencies for the fake 5g. T-mobile has no issues with frequencies.

Data usage will likely go up because with the bandwidth bottleneck eased the streamed video resolution will likely go up on the phones. But the speed improvement is not substantial.

So your saying 4g LTE can obtain download speeds of 700+ Mbps?

I haven’t looked into it but I cant agree as I can get 700 Mbps on my T mobile 5g iPhone 13. When I get those speeds the phone displays 5G UC