We've been hearing a lot about 5G in the US over the last 12 months, but on Friday, things are going to take a major step forward.
T mobile's turning on its low band 5G nationwide network that it says will cover 200 million people t mobile's also launching two new phones designed for this flavor of 5G, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 plus 5G at 1300 dollars.
Note from Samsung.
And this guy, the one plus 70 Pro five g McLaurin.
For one plus, this phone is $900.
And it's what we've been using for the past few days to test out t mobile's 5G network in New York City.
We have full 5G service where we are in New York.
So let's see how fast t mobile's network really is.
Let's use Netflix fast, calm and run a speed test right now.
These are pretty good speeds we're getting between 4050 megabits per second.
Right now it's balanced 30s but in some earlier tests, we're getting 40s and 50s.
And that's pretty good, but it's in line with what you'll see, with 4G LTE.
It's not radically game changing like some other 5G networks that use millimeter wave including t mobile's own, which is also live in New York City.
T mobile's not the only one to launch a 5G network on a frequency different than the hype and millimeter wave that's been used by Verizon at&t and even TMobile in some areas.
Sprint actually has 5G in nine cities on what's known as mid band or a middle ground between the low band 5G network t mobile's launching on Friday and the high frequency band that horizons been touting in 18 cities.
Across the country, New York actually is one of those cities.
So let's compare t mobile's low band 5G network to sprint mid Van 5G network.
So on my left this phone is sprint Galaxy S 10.
5G.
This works with Sprint's mid band 5G network on my right of course is the one plus 70 Pro five g McLaurin, which uses t mobile's low band 5G Let's use a fast.com speed test and see which one is better.
So both off to some slow start, it's roughly comparable.
Burt as you can see here, Sprint, on the left, which is using mid band, getting around 70 Mbps.
T-Mobile, which is using low band 5G 21 megabits per second.
So we're thankfully back inside now one of the best parts about low band 5G's that unlike millimeter wave, which only works really outside on a handful street corners, low Ben does really well indoors.
So we have a full 5G signal here in our see that studio Let's see how fast low ban works compared to LTE.
We have over here on the left the Samsung Galaxy S 10.
5G which works with T mobile's millimetre wave 5g network but does not work with the low band network.
So it's using 4G LTE here.
And of course the one plus 70 Pro five g McLaren.
Which works with the low band 5G network.
It does not work with T-Mobile's millimeter wave.
The one plus is on the 5G network, the galaxy is on the 4G network.
Let's see which one's faster.
We're gonna run the same test on fast.com.
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So as you could see on the left, the 4G network is going about 7 to 8 Mbps whereas the 5G network Is getting over 20.
Big jump for 5G.
And that's a pretty nice improvement indoors.
But you might be able to expect at least with this early wave of 5G phones.
In addition to having a network that works both indoors and outside.
Mobile also isn't charging extra for 5G which is a nice perk compared to what at&t and Verizon are doing where they require you to have one of their more recent unlimited plans in order to tap into 5G.
Now the big question of course, is this a time to buy a 5G phone Well, fellas a step in the right direction the answer is still probably not.
While t mobile's network is better with 5G, and in some cases much better.
For the most part, our experiences in New York have been that it's pretty similar to the 4G LTE network that it's had for years.
It's very fast, it's very good and then again in some places it's even better than what it's had before but it's still very much early days.
It's also what's keeping in mind that the bases that work with all free flavours of 5G, the low band that QMobile is launching with 200 million people this week The millimeter wave that is putting in dense urban areas and that mid band that is hoping to acquire with sprint.
phones that work on all three networks are expected to arrive in 2020.
So it may be best to hold off your 5G upgrade until then.
