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5G: U.S carrier’s deployment plans
Following the article on what is 5G, Wee know each carrier has a different 5G rollout strategy. This means your 5G experience may vary greatly depending on your carrier. Here are all the details we currently have concerning each carrier’s deployment plans.
Verizon
In its quest to be the first carrier to provide 5G, Verizon began offering pre-standard fixed 5G in homes in October 2018. Verizon’s fixed 5G service is currently available in portions of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, California. Since then, however, Verizon has also started rolling out its mobile 5G offering — and so far has brought mobile 5G to parts of Denver, Minneapolis, and Providence., Rhode Island.
Verizon is rolling out 5G on higher-frequency spectrum known as mmWave (28-39GHz). That means that while Verizon’s 5G will offer blazing-fast speeds when available, it will piggyback off its LTE spectrum for years to come. According to Verizon, 20 cities will get standards-based 5G in 2019, including Atlanta, Dallas, Memphis, Tennessee, and more.
As for hardware, Verizon already has a few devices that are available. First up is the 5G version of the Samsung Galaxy S10, but the carrier also supports the 5G Moto Mod for the Moto Z3 and Moto Z4. The carrier also supports the LG V50 ThinQ. And we can’t forget the Inseego Mi-Fi 5G hot spot, featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chip.
Keep up with Verizon’s 5G rollout
AT&T
AT&T officially won the race to be the first carrier to roll out true 5G service. In December 2018, the carrier began offering 5G in parts of Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas; Houston; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Florida; Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans; Oklahoma City; Raleigh, North Carolina; San Antonio; and Waco, Texas. In early 2019, the carrier also started deploying to parts of Orlando, Florida; Las Vegas; Nashville, Tennessee; Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; Dallas; and more. And, it says that the tech will be coming to Chicago, Cleveland, and Minneapolis soon.
Unfortunately, while AT&T’s 5G rollout is pretty comprehensive, AT&T is initially limiting its 5G service to a select group of businesses customers. It plans to provide free service and equipment to this group for at least three months, before rolling out the service to a larger audience.
Like Verizon, AT&T is rolling out its mobile 5G on mmWave spectrum. In an interview with Urgent Communications, Dave Wolter, assistant vice president of radio technology and strategy for AT&T Labs, offered some insight into what you should expect with the carrier’s 5G service initially. “If you’re in a downtown urban environment — where it’s going to be pretty much line of sight until you go around a corner — that’s one thing … If you have a street lined with trees, that’s going to be a different environment. If you’re in a heavily treed environment, that’s going to be difficult. All of those things are going to impact the kind of range that we can anticipate.”
The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G is available on AT&T too — though currently it’s only worth getting if you’re a business customer. The Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot was also announced by the carrier earlier this year.
When it comes to fixed 5G service, it’s going to be a little bit longer. Trade publication SDX Central reports AT&T will roll out fixed LTE service in late 2019 over the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum and eventually migrate to 5G service.
Keep up with AT&T’s 5G rollout
T-Mobile
America’s Un-Carrier is taking a more measured approach. Instead of racing to be first out of the gate, T-Mobile wants to provide a more reliable service with more coverage area. In early 2018, T-Mobile announced it was building out its 5G network in 30 cities. In mid-2019, the company announced that mobile 5G is available in six cities, including parts of Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York. Expect to see T-Mobile 5G in 30 cities in late 2019. The carrier plans to offer 5G nationwide by 2020.
The carrier also offers the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G for those who live in areas with 5G and want to take advantage of the new speeds.
T-Mobile is making use of a range of frequency bands for its 5G rollout. While it was initially thought that the carrier would rely mostly on low-band spectrum, T-Mobile is also using mmWave tech, including 39GHz in some cities and more mid-band 28GHz in other areas. T-Mobile is also using 600MHz for a more reliable and stable connection — and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 5G is the first device to support that 600MHz spectrum.
For fixed 5G, it looks like T-Mobile wants to make some serious waves. In a statement submitted to the FCC, T-Mobile said it projects more than 1.9 million in-home wireless broadband customers by 2021. By 2024, the carrier wants to provide fixed 5G to more than half the ZIP codes in the U.S., and be the nation’s fourth-largest in-home ISP.
Since T-Mobile CEO John Legere has publicly lambasted AT&T and Verizon for launching its 5G with mobile hots spots, it’s a pretty safe bet the carrier doesn’t plan to release its own hot spot, at least not for a while. Instead, T-Mobile is offering the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G to customers.
Keep up with T-Mobile’s 5G rollout
Sprint
Sprint will initially launch its 5G network on its extensive mid-band spectrum (2.5 GHz). That’s the same spectrum the carrier uses for its 4G data network, and it plans to use 128-radio massive MIMO equipment on its towers to create a 4G/5G split. Since Sprint is one of the few carriers with lots of extra 2.5GHz spectrum, it can use the excess mid-band to roll out 5G service quickly and relatively inexpensively in larger cities.
When it comes to hardware, Sprint has actually promised three 5G products for 2019, and they’re all already available. For starters, Sprint offers the LG V50 ThinQ. Sprint also announced a 5G Mobile Smart Hub with HTC, and the carrier also supports the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G.
Keep up with Sprint’s 5G rollout
T-Mobile and Sprint merger
So what happens when T-Mobile and Sprint merge? Well, both companies claim the merger will be good for the economy and the country. The companies also claim that together as the New T-Mobile, it would have the assets and spectrum on multiple bands to become the first nationwide 5G carrier.
While the combined bandwidth of the two companies would almost certainly lead to a faster and more reliable nationwide 5G rollout, there are some issues. For starters, there would be fewer options in the already anemic U.S. carrier market. And that means less competition for both consumers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).
With the merger approved now by the FCC, it’s time for the two to become one, stacking all three bands of 5G spectrum to show us how great this actually will be for customers.
Source: www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-5g/