Verizon names 20 more 5G cities, T-Mobile says mmWave 5G will be urban-only
Verizon on Thursday announced 20 further U.S. cities set to get 5G, including the fastest version of the standard, millimeter wave (mmWave) -- a technology T-Mobile's CTO says won't make it beyond urban borders.
Verizon is aiming to surpass 30 cities by the end of 2019, having already begun limited deployment in Chicago and Minneapolis. The 20 revealed today include: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Des Moines, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Memphis, Phoenix, Providence, San Diego, Salt Lake City, and Washington, D.C.
The carrier is meanwhile launching preorders for the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, one of its first 5G-compatible phones. Prices, however, start at $1,299.99 if bought outright, with a $10 monthly 5G fee on top of regular data. Buyers can however get the fee waved, a $200 prepaid Mastercard, and up to $450 for a trade-in if they're switching to Verizon, buying the S10 5G on a payment plan, and opting for Verizon Unlimited.
It's likely that Verizon's mmWave will be scattered in pockets across each city, in part because of its inherently short range.
On Monday, T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray argued that mmWave "will never materially scale beyond small pockets of 5G hotspots in dense urban environments," as it "doesn't travel far from the cell site and doesn't penetrate materials at all." In an animated GIF, Ray even demonstrated a mmWave signal being cut off by a door.
"We all need to remind ourselves this is not a coverage spectrum," Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg commented a day later.
Beyond just executives commenting on 5G spread, or the lack thereof, AppleInsider has been told by multiple sources that rollouts for all carriers will be a "years-long" affair. Sources familiar with the matter aren't expecting full deployment in Washington D.C. itself for four or more years, and the technology may never fully make it out to the larger DC metropolitan area suburbs.
iPhones aren't expected to include 5G modems until 2020. That may be a result the now-ended Apple v. Qualcomm battle, as well as slow development by Intel. Intel dropped out of the 5G race shortly after the Qualcomm settlement, leaving one supplier for 5G in the iPhone.
Verizon is aiming to surpass 30 cities by the end of 2019, having already begun limited deployment in Chicago and Minneapolis. The 20 revealed today include: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Des Moines, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Memphis, Phoenix, Providence, San Diego, Salt Lake City, and Washington, D.C.
The carrier is meanwhile launching preorders for the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, one of its first 5G-compatible phones. Prices, however, start at $1,299.99 if bought outright, with a $10 monthly 5G fee on top of regular data. Buyers can however get the fee waved, a $200 prepaid Mastercard, and up to $450 for a trade-in if they're switching to Verizon, buying the S10 5G on a payment plan, and opting for Verizon Unlimited.
It's likely that Verizon's mmWave will be scattered in pockets across each city, in part because of its inherently short range.
On Monday, T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray argued that mmWave "will never materially scale beyond small pockets of 5G hotspots in dense urban environments," as it "doesn't travel far from the cell site and doesn't penetrate materials at all." In an animated GIF, Ray even demonstrated a mmWave signal being cut off by a door.
"We all need to remind ourselves this is not a coverage spectrum," Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg commented a day later.
Beyond just executives commenting on 5G spread, or the lack thereof, AppleInsider has been told by multiple sources that rollouts for all carriers will be a "years-long" affair. Sources familiar with the matter aren't expecting full deployment in Washington D.C. itself for four or more years, and the technology may never fully make it out to the larger DC metropolitan area suburbs.
iPhones aren't expected to include 5G modems until 2020. That may be a result the now-ended Apple v. Qualcomm battle, as well as slow development by Intel. Intel dropped out of the 5G race shortly after the Qualcomm settlement, leaving one supplier for 5G in the iPhone.
Comments
And you're right, most users don't care about latency. Speeds will greatly vary by the inch. Based on how mmWave propagates and penetrates, a difference of inches in regards to device placement on your desk could make all the difference. We'll see.
And, notably, tree leaves are an effective mmwave block. Delivered signal will vary a great deal based on plant cover alone -- and that's pretty ridiculous.
You've got T-Mobile and Verizon saying the same thing.
That doesn't mean that 5G isn't useful, nor that this is anything other than the providers side of the equation that we are talking about, so fucking thanks for attempting to make this about the iPhone's current lack of 5G capability. DBAD. It just isn't relevant to this story.
Since I live at the edge of a barely urbanized area, the Capital of Nevada, Carson City, I don't expect to see 5G anytime soon, and even then, it will be confined to the downtown area that is dominated by state government buildings. I expect LTE to be around for a long, long time.
A recent IEEE report showed reception of a 1 watt signal at 10km for 5G. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/millimeter-waves-travel-more-than-10-kilometers-in-rural-virginia
In the city, 5G is hampered by all objects which absorb the signal, which must be balanced by more transmitters, which costs, but is compensated by more people paying.
In rural or less urban areas, more open spaces means better transmission distances, so less need for multiple transmitters, but less people to pay for them.
The more 5G is just a transmission protocol, and not simply defined as broadcasting on specific wavelengths, the more 5G can become the standard for cellular communications supporting multiple wavelengths.
That means heavily trafficked locations like Times Square (NYC), The Mall (Washington D.C.), maybe Chicago's Miracle Mile, the Strip in Las Vegas, San Francisco's Union Square and other similar locations.
It would also assume eventual deployment at major venues such as NFL football stadiums, MLB ballparks, perhaps some indoor venues (NBA basketball, NHL hockey) as well as a some college sports venues and other places (perhaps certain locations at Disneyland, some convention centers such as Las Vegas).
I assume that overseas deployment would also include venues like soccer stadiums, public areas like the famous Shibuya "scramble crossing" in Tokyo, downtown shopping districts such as Ginza, Champs-Elysées in Paris, major city squares and landmarks.
Don't expect mmWave 5G in your office building, the dog park or the Costco parking lot.
My guess is that the first substantial deployment might be overseas, perhaps various venues for the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games next year. And yeah, there's probably a greater likelihood of mmWave 5G being deployed at Shinagawa Station and Tokyo Station (both of which handle more daily passengers than Atlanta's airport) before you'll see it in any substantial capacity at US transit facilities.
As I pointed out on another thread -- that has been a problem for over 100 years -- getting electrification and copper wires to the rural communities. The capitalistic profit model does not serve those areas well because there's no profit in it. It took government initiatives to solve the problem.
As for T-Mobile and Verizon saying it won't be ready for use (which is what you seem to be implying) for "5 years or more", I have not heard them say that.
My prediction is: Apple knows just how important 5G is -- which is why they settled with Qualcomm. And, they will announce a 5G phone in September.
The point is that the mmWave 5G technology has a number of limitations defined by the laws of physics. The cost of deployment and operation does not encourage mobile operators to make the capital expenditure to expand their mmWave 5G coverage beyond the most densely and heavily trafficked areas, at least according to the T-Mobile CTO. He likely has better insight into the technical difficulties and costs associated with deploying cellular networks than anyone here in this bboard, including both you and me. He's not working with an unlimited budget funded by a tree growing dollar bills.
Hell, I'm not sure if mmWave 5G will be deployed in the Tokyo Metropolitan subway system due to its technical limitations and need for extra transmitters. 4G LTE works great in Tokyo Metro.
And WiFi is still a reasonable alternative. On a recent trip to Japan, I took one of their bullet train lines and got 40Mbps download speeds on the train's free WiFi. WiFi can also be found in many public transit facilities in Japan, at least the metropolitan cities. As far as I could tell, free WiFi access to visitors in major Japanese cities blows doors on every single large US city that I've been to, including (but not limited to) all of the ones I've mentioned before.
mmWave 5G cellular networks are just one of several possible solutions that a network operator can choose from, not the sole option. In many cases, there will probably be most cost efficient options to provide adequate network connectivity to the users of that area. You don't need Gigabit speed on every square millimeter of the inhabited planet.
Even the Verizon executive followed up a day later to clarify that mmWave 5G is not coverage spectrum.
I live in one of those Silicon Valley cities and I don't expect mmWave 5G coverage in my town even though this is one of the most tech friendly places in the entire USA. In a couple of years, there might be mmWave 5G at Levi's Stadium, Oracle Park, maybe the new Chase Arena plus a few more places in the 415, 650, and 408 area codes, but not more.
I'll be the last to get it anyhow even if I have a handset that is capable of mmWave 5G reception and the equipment is deployed on the local cellular tower. I'm using an MVNO that operates on T-Mobile's network; MVNO and prepaid customers are basically the last to get access to new high-speed networks.
Apple has never released a handset that adopts up-and-coming sparsely deployed cellular network technologies. Apple waits until there's significant deployment to make it a worthwhile and relevant selling point.
Remember that 5G isn't coming to the USA first. The first truly significant deployments will be in Southeast Asia and some of the richer Western European countries' major cities. The USA is not the pioneer when it comes to cellular network deployments.
The first wave of cellular chips are often power hungry so it is likely that future silicon will be more energy efficient and thus more interesting for manufacturers of battery powered mobile devices. We saw the same thing with the first wave of 4G LTE chips which were primarily used in cellular modems plugged into the wall using AC electricity.
Even today's smartphones often have a setting to turn off LTE. No reason to enable the circuitry and have it waste battery if there's no such network in your area.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-5g-everything-you-need-to-know/