T-Mobile Aiming to Cover 90% of Americans With 'Ultra Capacity 5G' By 2023

[MacBH928]

Explain what change in habits you will have because of faster downloads. How are you going to use your 15 gb so quickly? You can't consume content any faster and the content is still the same size....this whole notion that one will blow through their data allotment quickly because it downloads faster is baffling to me but then again, I'm not a phone addict. I use less than 2 gb per month and can't imagine why having 5g speeds would increase that.

(and why move to a faster speed? I don't think the choice is going to be mine to make at some point....)

We're talking mobile phones, not home internet connection. There is one and only one use case I can see where, for example, a 150MB LTE download speed --which I get --is not sufficient, and I'll discuss that below.

You don't need more than 150MB to use 4K in youtube. And that speed should be plenty sufficient for stream game services like Stadia. And what multi-gb software updates are you downloading to your phone, assuming your phone even lets you do this, that can't wait until you get home, so you don't blow past your allotment.

The one exception, and that applies to the ultra-high speed 1gig 5G service, is being able to download a movie to your phone for later viewing. But that use case requires you are in a very narrow zone of blanketed high speed coverage, which in the near future is not going to change in terms of widespread deployment.

OPS comments weren't far off-base. While I don't believe 100% of the continental US could ever have cell phone coverage, popular destinations and popular remote locations should have coverage without resorting to a satellite phone.

So you are saying 150Mbps already is too fast and we shouldn't move to 5G since there is no extra benefit?

 

[JBGoode]

So you are saying 150Mbps already is too fast and we shouldn't move to 5G since there is no extra benefit?

I didn’t say that so why are you quoting me? I’m just trying to understand why you think you’ll use your data quickly because your content downloads faster. 1gb is 1gb no matter how quickly you receive it and since you can’t consume content any faster, I’m trying to understand your point and how this would happen.

 

[I7guy]

So you are saying 150Mbps already is too fast and we shouldn't move to 5G since there is no extra benefit?

I saying that the benefit of 5G is mostly to the providers in better congestion management. IMO, most consumers will not see a difference unless you are near field mmwave towers.

 

[imlynxy]

We had a number of power outages here in the SF Bay Area due to the wildfires last year, and T-Mobile continued working every single time (I have their 5GB for 5 months pass in my iPad as a backup for cases like this). They obviously have generators.

With the newly acquired spectrum from Sprint and the auction T-Mobile should now have what they need to provide good coverage nationwide. I'll probably switch to them soon (or maybe try Mint Mobile, which uses their network).

CA has the state law for mandatory power generators. Unfortunately the rest of the country doesn’t have it.

 

[imlynxy]

Where does Verizon have coverage that AT&T and T-Mobile does not?

Curious.

Actually Att now has more LTE coverage than VZ has. Att has to fulfill their First Net obligations. They cover now 2.71M sqm and going to have 2.74M sqm. Just recent examples (170 new sites in ME, 17 new sites in North NY,….) .

VZ is around2.68+ now and busy with congestion and diversification rather than rural coverage.

T-mobile is still behind in term of coverage. With Sprint they gained just around 1% of extra coverage and now around 2.29.

Here I said about total coverage, not 5G. T-mobile is the leader in low band 5G . And I do belive so in mid-band 5G. I predict that T-mobile in mid term momentum can have the fastest 5G network (1-2 years term) and later VZ comes back with C- band.

 

[MacBH928]

I didn’t say that so why are you quoting me? I’m just trying to understand why you think you’ll use your data quickly because your content downloads faster. 1gb is 1gb no matter how quickly you receive it and since you can’t consume content any faster, I’m trying to understand your point and how this would happen.

ok.

imagine it takes you 8 hours to download a 1GB movie. How much of your time will you spend watching movies online?

Now imagine your internet is so fast, you can stream that 1GB movie instantly. How much of your time will you spend watching movies online?

People used to listen to music on CDs. When internet became fast they subscribe to spotify and listen endlessly on it. You see how this works?

 

[SactoGuy18]

All I know is that unlike the questionable mid-band "5G" that Verizon installed, on my iPhone 12 running on T-Mobile US' network, I've gotten as high as 800 mbps download/98 mbps upload when connected to the former Sprint mid-band LTE towers. 😲 That's the type of performance you usually associate with what you get in Japan or South Korea.

 

[Biro]

Actually Att now has more LTE coverage than VZ has. Att has to fulfill their First Net obligations. They cover now 2.71M sqm and going to have 2.74M sqm. Just recent examples (170 new sites in ME, 17 new sites in North NY,….) .

VZ is around2.68+ now and busy with congestion and diversification rather than rural coverage.

T-mobile is still behind in term of coverage. With Sprint they gained just around 1% of extra coverage and now around 2.29.

Here I said about total coverage, not 5G. T-mobile is the leader in low band 5G . And I do belive so in mid-band 5G. I predict that T-mobile in mid term momentum can have the fastest 5G network (1-2 years term) and later VZ comes back with C- band.

Agreed. But T-Mobile's service is likely to be much more robust within the service footprint that it shares with Sprint - at least when they get everyone from both brands on one system and using one SIM card. And, as you say, they are ahead of the game with 5G for now. Verizon likely won't let that go unanswered. As for AT&T, who knows? They're busy trying to fool customers that they're getting 5G when they're still getting LTE.

 

[JBGoode]

ok.

imagine it takes you 8 hours to download a 1GB movie. How much of your time will you spend watching movies online?

Now imagine your internet is so fast, you can stream that 1GB movie instantly. How much of your time will you spend watching movies online?

People used to listen to music on CDs. When internet became fast they subscribe to spotify and listen endlessly on it. You see how this works?

I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. You can stream movies instantly on LTE with sub-10mbps speed. Nobody waits 8 hours for a movie to download

No, I don't see how this works. Nothing you have said makes any sense.

 

[macsound1]

ok.

imagine it takes you 8 hours to download a 1GB movie. How much of your time will you spend watching movies online?

Now imagine your internet is so fast, you can stream that 1GB movie instantly. How much of your time will you spend watching movies online?

People used to listen to music on CDs. When internet became fast they subscribe to spotify and listen endlessly on it. You see how this works?

I don't think he's saying that fast internet vs slow internet isn't good.

What he's saying and I agree with are: if you already have LTE that's fast enough to stream video, upload and download files and images to work and personal storage solutions, make VoLTE calls and all that good stuff, what measurable improvement will you get if the speed increases?

I personally only see 5G to improve congestion, ball games, conventions, theme parks, and on my iPhone 12, I have 5G turned off because I see no value in it.

 

[imlynxy]

Agreed. But T-Mobile's service is likely to be much more robust within the service footprint that it shares with Sprint - at least when they get everyone from both brands on one system and using one SIM card. And, as you say, they are ahead of the game with 5G for now. Verizon likely won't let that go unanswered. As for AT&T, who knows? They're busy trying to fool customers that they're getting 5G when they're still getting LTE.

T-mobile is going to have the the most densified macro network. They started to build the network with mid bands, while Att/VZ had low bands. With the addition of Sprint sites they be even stronger in urban areas.

VZ is going to spend $6B in addition to their CAPEX for C-band only. I predict that they will be #1. ( VZ CAPEX 2021 is 18+6B vs T-mobile 11-12B).

Att? is the big question mark for me. They have strong LTE network+ 850MHz 5G and still perform marginally better than T-mobile in my area. They are going to have a large footprint of fiber. HBO Max is a good product. The problem I do not see any strategy.
The last CNBC interview with their CEO and the recent investors’ conference didn’t “sell” me their stocks. I can always be wrong.

My opinion: in 3-4 years we have 1. Verizon, 2-3. Att and T-mobile or T-mobile-Att
I personally use T-mobile (works 99% compare to Att/VZW) and cheap VZ MVNO as a backup. I see mo reason to pay more, IMO cell service has the worst return on investment

Time shows better.

 

[max2]

Is it true if you pay $10 more a month on most of the Verizon plans it gives you 1080p + streaming video quality instead of a limit of 720p ?

 

[MacBH928]

You can stream movies instantly on LTE with sub-10mbps speed. Nobody waits 8 hours for a movie to download

No, I don't see how this works. Nothing you have said makes any sense.

What he's saying and I agree with are: if you already have LTE that's fast enough to stream video, upload and download files and images to work and personal storage solutions, make VoLTE calls and all that good stuff, what measurable improvement will you get if the speed increases?

I personally only see 5G to improve congestion, ball games, conventions, theme parks, and on my iPhone 12, I have 5G turned off because I see no value in it.

So we dont need faster internet than 4g/LTE? As you mention we can do everything already fast enough.

 

[I7guy]

So we dont need faster internet than 4g/LTE? As you mention we can do everything already fast enough.

Everything is too broad a term. However as tech gravitates towards 8k and 16k more bandwidth will be needed and 4g will fall short.

 

[JBGoode]

So we dont need faster internet than 4g/LTE? As you mention we can do everything already fast enough.

I said nothing about not needing faster internet so stop putting words in my mouth.

All I wanted was an answer to my question which you can’t seem to provide a valid answer to.

This is going nowhere so have a nice day. I no longer care to have an answer.

 

[bousozoku]

We switched from Verizon to Sprint back in 2013. Heard all the horror stories of bad bad bad Sprint service but we never experienced it. We have 5 lines of unlimited data (never throttled), each with 50GB of mobile hotspot per month. Always have had great service/coverage. When Sprint merged with T-Mobile, I was worried that things would change, but fortunately we still get great coverage (cross fingers). When I got my daughter the iPhone 12 it came with a T-Mobile SIM; my 12 Pro Max came with a Sprint one. I noticed that while I would get 5G coverage about 50% of the time, she would get it pretty much all the time. As I got my 12 Pro Max about a month before her 12, I previously thought my spotty 5G coverage was just due to our location. While my LTE coverage was good, I wanted to take advantage of the 5G capabilities of my iPhone so I went to T-Mobile and had them swap out my Sprint SIM for the T-Mobile one and sure enough, I'm on 5G almost all the time. The service is lightning fast and reliable! We have Spectrum internet at home but we turn off our WiFi on our phones because the 5G service is so much faster.

I'm glad to hear that you're having a good experience.

I just talked to two women coming through my check lane while one was having trouble connecting. The other said that the service here was okay. They both told me that if I'm getting great service that I should probably wait a while to switch. It's coming, regardless, but if T-Mobile improves, I'll be happy to switch.

I don't have to worry about 5G service because the 2020 iPhone SE doesn't have the hardware and I'm not ready for another round of early adopter battery drain. 100 Mbps download speed is plenty for me right now.

 

[macsound1]

Everything is too broad a term. However as tech gravitates towards 8k and 16k more bandwidth will be needed and 4g will fall short.

8k and 16k video? You're going to stream 8k video to an iPhone? I don't think network bandwidth will be your first problem, it will be battery life for decoding 8k video.