I’ve tested the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra on all U.S. 5G networks, and AT&T and T-Mobile’s 5G low band phones display “5G” icons when the phones are not actually using 5G networks for transfer data.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 series will be the real introduction to 5G for many Americans, but the state of 5G is bizarre. There are three “layers” of the 5G “cake”.
- Low band 5G uses long-range 4G waves and is the one you are most likely to see on AT&T and T-Mobile, but it is often not faster than 4G.
- Mid-band, used by Sprint and most of the rest of the world is a good balance between speed and coverage.
- Broadband, or millimeter waves (mmWave), is extremely short but can be 10 times faster than 4G.
On AT&T and T-Mobile, the small Galaxy S20 will only have the low and medium band 5G band. The Galaxy S20 + and the Galaxy S20 Ultra have all three types. But AT&T and T-Mobile seem to give their low-band phones a “5G” icon if the cell they’re connected to is capable of 5G, even if the network and the phone are only using 4G technology at the moment.
You can be on a low band 5G cell and ask the network to decide to use 4G for several reasons. Currently, 5G low band cannot be combined with LTE low band technology or LTE band assisted access (LAA) high band technology. see “5G”.
This 5G icon does not necessarily mean that you are transferring data to 5G.
There are also other, more obscure considerations. For example, you can have a cell site that has a 5G low band and an LTE medium band, but the 5G low band panel points in the wrong direction for you (yes, they are directional), so you don’t get attached than at mid-band LTE even if the cell displays the “5G” icon.
All of this adds to AT&T’s misleading “5GE” icon, which is just a label for its best 4G LTE carrier aggregation system.
If you see a “5G +” icon on an AT&T phone, like the picture at the top of this story, it’s on LTE broadband, and the experience will certainly be different. However, this network has relatively little coverage. T-Mobile does not label its 5G low band, high band and soon mid-band differently, but its high band is currently only available in seven cities.
Looks like 5G, looks like 4G
In the U.S., 5G low band is currently almost useless as it isn’t really worth a new icon. 5G is not magic; many of its advantages come from the fact that it can use more spectrum in larger channels than 4G. 4G maximizes channels at 20 MHz and 140 MHz of total use at the same time. 5G is available with 100 MHz channels and up to 800 MHz of total use.
AT&T and T-Mobile are reserving so little spectrum for 5G low band right now that it could just as easily be 4G. They don’t take advantage of these big chains. In many places, their 5G low band channels are only 5 MHz, and networks will decide that a collection of 4G 10-20 MHz channels available will provide a better overall experience. So you will see “5G” and use LTE.
Ookla Speedtest Intelligence crowdsourcing data shows that low-band 5G doesn’t make much of an experiential difference. On T-Mobile, 5G downloads using the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren averaged 61 Mbps in December, while 4G speeds on the same model averaged 44 Mbps. On AT&T, 5G low band downloads on the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G averaged 78 Mbps in December, while 4G speeds on the same model averaged 70 Mbps.
Gordon Mansfield of AT&T explained to me some time ago that it was part of a long game. From this summer, operators have access to DSS, a technology that allows them to dynamically transfer more 4G spectrum to 5G. Next year, they are getting new chipsets that can better combine low and medium band spectrum channels. Standalone network mode will improve the 5G experience by lowering latency.
So there is a technical reason, not just a marketing reason, for carriers to start in this currently humble place with 5G. This “5G” icon is overwhelmingly surprising, however.
Sprint and Verizon are a different story
The Sprint and Verizon indicators are more honest, for different reasons.
In the case of Sprint, its 4G and 5G networks use the same frequency band and overlap enough that there are no situations where you would be on a 5G cell, but the network would not want to use 5G. So if you see “5G”, you’re probably using 5G. That said, in recent tests, I haven’t seen any speed advantage for Sprint’s 5G over New York’s 4G, and the Sprint / T-Mobile merger makes everything cloudier. I will soon have a story about it.
Verizon’s ‘5G UWB’ icon means 5G fast, but it can be hard to find.
Verizon only displays its 5G icon when the phone is actively transmitting data over a 5G network. It’s more honest, but it also makes it difficult to determine where 5G coverage is, because if you are crossing a 5G area while your phone is not transmitting any data in the background, your phone is still showing 4G. It’s under-promising rather than over-promising, but it’s still a problem.
So … it’s a mess. But at least if you get a Galaxy S20 series phone, you will be relatively time-tested as operators will improve things over the next year.
