What should 5G speeds be

While really high speeds matter for speed test curiosity, there very few use cases on a smartphone where having more the 50 Mbps even 10 mostly matters…..
From the end user prospective, good application performance is a result of low latency and low or no packet loss. 5G has less than half of the latency that 4G/LTE has, so 5G clearly wins. From the carrier prospective, 5G scales MUCH better than 4G/LTE so it allows carriers to support a lot more endpoints and deliver much higher aggregate throughput with much lower latency. Marketing departments love to talk about how huge the download speeds are to your phone, but in the real world high throughput to individual phones doesn't matter. High aggregate throughput collectively matters to everyone.
 
@y_p_w
The higher the band = more speed. However the higher the band means less range.
So standard 5G covers a longer range than the higher 5G offerings , UW, UC and plus These symbols will show up on your phone next to the 5g when you are on the higher faster band (UW, UC and Plus)
You really need to be near a tower for the higher range. Easy in a city area not so in a suburban or rural area. For the record slower LTE has the longest range.

Does it really matter? Only for fun on a phone. I have in the past screen shot speeds up to the 700s mbps ... on a cell tower where I used to live on T-Mobile and something like the 400+ range I think in our new location. Posted in this forum a year back and years back respectfully. Im happy with a good strong LTE signal in our more rural coastal area which to my surprise really needs some upgrading for among the fastest growing area in the USA> we have some sketchy service from all providers here.

Where it does matter more is if you want to use T-Mobile and Verizon home (cell) internet service, where your TVs etc need much more reliable bandwidth than a phone. You might as well not even bother (or get your hopes to high) to try it in an area where you do not have nearly a line of site from the tower.

This explains your question though
https://www.theverge.com/22914668/5g-uw-uc-icon-meaning-verizon-att-t-mobile
 
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I concur. I think 5G doesn't lives up to its billing. I sure we all see ads touting 5G. 4G LTE is fine for me.
We don't really have 5G much in this country. And 5G is not meant for consumer use, it's for IOT - autonomous devices controlled through cellular connection like driverless cars, drones, etc.
 
And 5G is not meant for consumer use, it's for IOT - autonomous devices controlled through cellular connection like driverless cars, drones, etc.
A big part of the 5G upgrade is about scale. That applies to IOT and to consumer, but at different levels. IOT brings potentially thousands more devices per tower and consumers are doing what consumers do, that's consuming huge amounts of bandwidth. 5G addresses both of those issues.
 
There is a limited version of 5G designed for inexpensive low power hardware such as IOTs. It keeps the access capacity advantage but maximum speed is only a few Mb or less.

Watching one basic cable channel only takes about 3 Mb download speed but it does need to be reasonably steady.
 
Just recently switched to an unlimited plan that includes 5G with Cricket. Probably should have done this a while ago, but we had a convoluted family plan where we were on different plans but with a discount for being on one account. But their best deal is with the same regular unlimited plan for multiple lines, which includes 5G while previous plans didn't.

I have an iPhone SE (2022) which is 5G capable. I've tried testing it, and in my neighborhood and several places all it indicates now is 5G, but in some places I see "5G+" which is apparently AT&T's enhanced 5G network. When it says 5G, I haven't been able to get a speed test download faster than maybe 2.5 gbit/sec. But onc place I saw 5G+ and I was getting maybe 140 gbit/sec downloads and maybe 70 gbit/sec uploads.

Not sure what it is, but the 5G speeds seem to be pretty low - even lower than when I was on 4G LTE. Signal strength was pretty low though.
One thing about Cricket is that AT&T won’t de-prioritize you if things get busy. You have same priority as AT&T customers.
 
One thing about Cricket is that AT&T won’t de-prioritize you if things get busy.
Correct everyone is equally miserable. However, there are several QCI levels above consumer traffic so those queues get better treatment.
 
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Download Mbps
151.68
Upload Mbps
51.57
Im on 5g home internet. These are my current speeds during the busy time of night. I never have any issues with it. I stream my TV also. Im out in the hills too.
 
One thing about Cricket is that AT&T won’t de-prioritize you if things get busy. You have same priority as AT&T customers.
Yes mostly US Mobile Warp service which is Verizon is standard
US mobile actually now gives an option for TMobile and ATT

There are different categories of priority service There is top tier and tippy top tier *LOL* so if we discuss we should know which tier
I only learned this recently in here. US mobile site is pretty specific and they now offer options to the tippy top *LOL*

(im to lazy right now to look up the specifics. We do not have any issues even though we have US mobile Verizon with priority. I could care less in the sense, it comes with the service but I would never pay more for it only because where we live and our use, we never had a problem in the past 2 decades
 
Download Mbps
151.68
Upload Mbps
51.57
Im on 5g home internet. These are my current speeds during the busy time of night. I never have any issues with it. I stream my TV also. Im out in the hills too.
Nice to read about success stories. Those are nice numbers for sure. Everyone who has crazy high internet bills should be so lucky.
 
Correct everyone is equally miserable. However, there are several QCI levels above consumer traffic so those queues get better treatment.
May be but AT&T has the best service in WV because they were the only company to build towers in the state. Everyone else leases space on the towers at a lower level on the tower and that makes a difference in the hills.
 
Nice to read about success stories. Those are nice numbers for sure. Everyone who has crazy high internet bills should be so lucky.
Really? I guess my expectations for 5G speeds were higher. I just did a speed test from my sofa and got 300 down on my phone (Red Pocket GSMT). Maybe I take for granted my access to high data speeds 😮
 
I pay $50/mo. T-Mobile
Yes, if it works well it's a great deal. We recently moved into a new home, new area in 2023 and lucky to have "CO-OP" Fiber Service 300/300 for $57.95 our last home was Spectrum at $80 for 300/12

TMobile and Verizon not available where we live. Large community and some 1 mile closer to the T-Mobile tower get their internet service from them and very happy.
 
Really? I guess my expectations for 5G speeds were higher. I just did a speed test from my sofa and got 300 down on my phone (Red Pocket GSMT). Maybe I take for granted my access to high data speeds 😮
If you did a speed test from your sofa then disconnect from your home wifi before the speed test. :) Im just asking because you mention you are in your house so assume you are on your home WiFi network.

As far as cellular 5g you need to be close to a tower for higher speeds which can easily pass 500 up to around 750 Mbps. Close means you can see the tower. Or be within a mile.
The fact is, what can you do with anything over 300 Mbps? In most American households nothing, meaning the internet is used for domestic use. TVs, appliances, phones, computers and not downloading heavy intensive files as a course of business.

I did a thread on this here

 
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If you did a speed test from your sofa then disconnect from your home wifi before the speed test. :) Im just asking because you mention you are in your house so assume you are on your home WiFi network.

As far as cellular 5g you need to be close to a tower for higher speeds which can easily pass 500 up to around 750 Mbps. Close means you can see the tower. Or be within a mile.
The fact is, what can you do with anything over 300 Mbps? In most American households nothing, meaning the internet is used for domestic use. TVs, appliances, phones, computers and not downloading heavy intensive files as a course of business.

I did a thread on this here

Lol yes I was disconnected from WiFi and got 300 down.
 
I was standing about 10 feet from a mmWave cellular radio downtown Chicago and get 2.3Gb/s down. However if you put any object between your phone and the radio, the signal becomes practically useless. I don't see the point in outdoor mmWave.
Spatial mapping of areas & who/what is there. This was likely used in Washington D.C. for you know when. There’s plenty of documentation (DARPA, etc) where even home router signals can be used to create a Matrix-style map of an home, based on router outputs and signal reflections. It’s essentially an invisible surveillance camera you’re unaware of. Outdoors, couple that with geolocation of devices and other still-secret ways of using that information for whatever purposes they want…

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wi-fi-routers-used-to-detect-human-locations-poses-within-a-room#
 
Spatial mapping of areas & who/what is there. This was likely used in Washington D.C. for you know when. There’s plenty of documentation (DARPA, etc) where even home router signals can be used to create a Matrix-style map of an home, based on router outputs and signal reflections. It’s essentially an invisible surveillance camera you’re unaware of. Outdoors, couple that with geolocation of devices and other still-secret ways of using that information for whatever purposes they want…

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wi-fi-routers-used-to-detect-human-locations-poses-within-a-room#
Yes, this is very true and has been out for a while. I’m sure some of this technology is now used for surveillance, especially the 5G band.
The human body is composed of 60% water.
Water absorbs radio waves of all kinds
 
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