Faster mmWave 5G Still Limited to U.S. iPhone 16 Models

[questionwonder]

So the new iPhone didn't get the Snapdragon X75?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Aren’t all the data speeds already fine for phones?

 

[Chuckeee]

So the new iPhone didn't get the Snapdragon X75?

I believe only the Pro models. The plain models got last year’s X70

 

[d5aqoëp]

mmWave is a failed tech. US carriers tried hard to justify their deployment but it’s on its way out soon within next couple of years.

 

[ksec]

No mmWave outside US? That can't be true. Macumors comments have been suggesting since 2019 that mmWave is the TRUE and REAL 5G. Only just the rest of the world are not getting it. And we are coming close to 2025, and yet not a single country embraced Real 5G? Seriously ?

Either the rest of the world are very dump or could it be Macumors comments.... are wrong again?

At one point Macrumors comment even suggested true 5G will come when Apple make their own 5G modem.

 

[platinumaqua]

mmWave isn't needed even for stadiums in Asia. This can solved by installing more mid-band base stations.

In general, mmW isn't commercially viable, which is why you don't see it deployed to any scale outside the U.S. The U.S. only adopted mmW because of geopolitical reasons, not technical.

According to Apple, mid-band 5G can deliver up to 3.5 Gbps while mmW up to 4 Gbps. So who needs mmW?

and there are train stations in the world with more people at a given time than a fully loaded US stadium

 

[Neko1500]

mmWave 5G is completely overhyped and mostly pointless since it has such a limited scenario where it works well. sub6 5G as I have with T-Mobile here in the US, there are places where I am comfortably getting over 1Gbps down on my Pixel 8 Pro and about 150Mbps up so it isn't slow by any means.

Not if you live downtown in a major metro. I live in DTLA and regularly get 800-1200 Mbps down / 100-200 up.

 

[JPack]

and there are train stations in the world with more people at a given time than a fully loaded US stadium

Attenuation is greatest with indoor building materials, especially concrete. It's another reason why mmWave failed to get traction anywhere else in the world.

Research on Penetration Loss of D-Band Millimeter Wave for Typical Materials - PMC

The millimeter-wave frequency band provides abundant frequency resources for the development of beyond 5th generation mobile network (B5G) mobile communication, and its relative bandwidth of 1% can provide a gigabit-level communication bandwidth. In ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"In April 2019, Verizon, the largest mobile operator in the United States, launched 5G mobile services in the 28 GHz band in Chicago and Minneapolis. For indoor coverage, Verizon’s 5G mmWave signal is nearly unreachable. After penetrating the concrete wall, the 5G download rate dropped sharply from 600 Mbit/s to 41.5 Mbit/s, while the 4G downlink rate at 1900 MHz did not change much, due to the severe penetration loss of 5G mmWave."

 

[svish]

Not surprised. Still not expecting to see mmWave support outside US even next year.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

I'd rather have the SIM slot. It's more useful.

 

[RumorChaser]

This is a very very niche technology that has an extremely limited rollout.

No one should have FOMO over this.

The only FOMO was from US carriers (particularly Verizon and AT&T) taking billions from the US government (through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) to build out their mmWave network.

 

[Reason077]

I’m in London and I get reliably faster speeds with 4G than with 5G.

This is going to depend a lot on your carrier and specific location. If you’re on 3, for example, 5G is pretty much always massively faster than 4G. But on something like Vodafone they have some sites with “true” 5G at 3.6 GHz (C-Band), but others where 5G actually runs on 4G bands using dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) which offer only marginal gains over 4G. But at least you get the warm fuzzy feeling of seeing a “5G” symbol on your screen

If you’re consistently get better speeds with 4G it might simply be that there are so many 5G devices now that the 5G bands are getting very congested, leaving the 4G ones open…

 

[BC2009]

What would be the regulatory issue with mmWave?

Nothing. That is the joke. Because lots of other things that should not run afoul of the DMA are causing problems for Apple.

 

[Nahmeanz]

What's more annoying for me is that the models sold in Asia is missing the n71 band also. When I'm in the US, I'm on T-mobile who uses n41 and n71 for 5G.

 

[BrandoCalrissian]

Maybe we’ll get GTA on iPhone before mmWaves in 3rd world countries

We already have GTA on iPhone. San Andreas is #2 on the Action charts.