T-Mobile Teases Plans to Launch Nationwide 5G Network in U.S. Within Three Years

Switched to T-Mobile in late March and I couldn't be more pleased. My monthly bill is $56 for unlimited everything. Crazy. ($46 a month if I use less than 2GB of data, which I have so far.)
 
As everybody said alreayd. T-Mobil should first fix their currently poor reception instead thinking about rolling 5G.

When they rolled 4G LTE, they did the same error. They rolled it without first fixing the crappy coverage. When T-Mobil works its great, fast and the prices beat ATT to the ground, but they work in so few areas compared to ATT and Verizon it's worthless for many.
 
charlesdayton said:
As everybody said alreayd. T-Mobil should first fix their currently poor reception instead thinking about rolling 5G.
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It's not either or. The rollout of their 600MHz band (initially with LTE and with 5G when it's ready) is their plan to address the coverage issues. The band is well suited to improve building penetration and coverage outside of the cities using larger macro cells. There is a reason why they paid so much money for it: they desperately needed it ...
 
rjohnstone said:
Both the Galaxy S8 and S8+ are the only phones that currently support AT&T's 5G Evolution network.
They'll be the first handset to access it.

Granted 5G isn't even a completed standard yet, so...
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Uh, no. That's 100% BS.

AT&T's "5G Evolution" fakery is a fancy name for LTE-A technologies, specifically 256QAM and 4x4 MIMO.

4x4 MIMO allows for four connections between your phone and the cell site, think of this as adding lanes.

256QAM allows for more data to be sent per transmission, think of this as raising the speed limit.

T-Mobile has had these features live nationwide since 2016, and there has been spotty (but not announced) availability on AT&T and VZ in some areas.

The S8 is not the only device to support 256QAM and 4x4 MIMO.
 
Steve.P.JobsFan said:
Uh, no. That's 100% BS.

AT&T's "5G Evolution" fakery is a fancy name for LTE-A technologies, specifically 256QAM and 4x4 MIMO.

4x4 MIMO allows for four connections between your phone and the cell site, think of this as adding lanes.

256QAM allows for more data to be sent per transmission, think of this as raising the speed limit.

T-Mobile has had these features live nationwide since 2016, and there has been spotty (but not announced) availability on AT&T and VZ in some areas.

The S8 is not the only device to support 256QAM and 4x4 MIMO.
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What part of what I typed is BS?
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ are in fact the ONLY handsets that can access AT&T's 5G Evolution network.
That is not BS, that is exactly what AT&T states.

http://about.att.com/story/5g_evolution_to_over_20_metros_in_2017.html

Our 5G Evolution offers infinite possibilities and allows you to take faster internet speeds with you on the go. In Austin, that means it offers twice the speeds of our 4G LTE network,1 and can be accessed by customers on almost all AT&T data plans with a Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ device.
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GSM Arena states the same.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/ATT-5G-Evolution-Samsung-Galaxy-S8_id93443

For the moment, only owners of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ (pictured above) can enjoy the faster data speeds that AT&T's 5G Evolution is enabling.
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I never said they were the only LTE-A capable device.
AT&T restricts it to these devices. Hence they are the only ones that can be used.
 
JohnnyApple$eed said:
Do it with an unlimited plan and I'll make the switch. Finally, something that would be a game changer.
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It's already Unlimited. only one plan so what else is there to choose from? If you watch the video he said 5G or just Spectrum will work on all bands including the new band 600mhz. If you kept up with Tmobile when John Legere takes CEO. He is the Game Changer. Haha
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wigby said:
Will iPhone even bother supporting 5G before 2020?
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starting with the iPhone 6 refresh every year they max out on spectrum. So including this year with their 10 years anniversary I don't see why not including 5G if there is a company to offer it. It might probably be the manufacturer who can provide them with 5G capable. It has to be tested before would green flag for shipment. Apple is never behind it just has to work well for them to implement it like Cost to make/revenue.
 
A wifi station in my house usually gives me 20mbit/s, and I mean to another computer on my LAN. If 5G truly gives you 10gbit/s, then that's really sad.
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WRChris said:
All this talk about specific speeds is funny. Just don't use it or it will be 128kbps
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Really, LTE service providers promise 50mbit/s, but in real life, it takes like 60 seconds to buffer a low-res YouTube video. What really pissed me off is I ran a speed test, saw 50mbit/s, then tried to load a video in the same spot, waited forever. So I no longer trust speedttest.net...
 
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bboucher790 said:
They just spent eight billion dollars to do just this. I have TMobile and my GF has Verizon. I can count the times on my hand where she has had service and I didn't. We've traveled a lot in the past few years on both coasts, north and south. I'd say the only time there was a real difference in service was our drive from Cali > Texas.

I had Verizon previously and it wasn't "perfect" by any means. I'd rather be a T-Mobile customer any day of the week, then fork my money to Verizon or ATT. By 2020, T-Mobile should be on par or better than the competition. They won't stop.
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Yes, I'm aware of their ads. That and their aggressive pricing got me to dump my ATT plan a few months ago. During that time ground level service in DC has been good. In Metros depend on the station -- not a problem I had w/ ATT. Even at Nats Park where T Mob is a big sponsor and advertiser service is spotty -- though ATT was too. But ATT was never a sponsor with big banners hanging from the Bull Pen. I've been in parking garages where ATT was fine but T Mob was "no service."

So far I'm not inconvenienced enough to bother changing. Doing so would cost me another $20/mo easy going to VZW. Plus I'm kinda addicted to T Mob Tuesdays. Just saying T Mob 4G isn't as good as it advertises in my experience so I hope its 5G network considers all the flaws of its 4G network now that it's trying to get to the top of the pack rather than follow behind.
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
The past 5 iPhones have supported more carriers and tech than any other phone on the market at the time of their release, including the current iPhone 7.

Yes, Apple was slow to roll out 3G but that was 2008, nearly 10 years ago. Since that time, they've lead the way.
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They were pretty slow with 4G/LTE. The iPhone 5, first phone with LTE, was less than 5 years ago.
 
bboucher790 said:
They just spent eight billion dollars to do just this. I have TMobile and my GF has Verizon. I can count the times on my hand where she has had service and I didn't. We've traveled a lot in the past few years on both coasts, north and south. I'd say the only time there was a real difference in service was our drive from Cali > Texas.

I had Verizon previously and it wasn't "perfect" by any means. I'd rather be a T-Mobile customer any day of the week, then fork my money to Verizon or ATT. By 2020, T-Mobile should be on par or better than the competition. They won't stop.
Click to expand...

The difference between Verizon and T-Mobile in the Midwest can be pretty drastic. I was on Verizon until a couple months ago. My fiancé has been with T-Mobile since 2013. We live near Kansas City. Along the I-80 corridor between Des Moines and Chicago, T-Mobile has large gaps in coverage or has to roam into an MVNO. Verizon coverage is pretty good, occasionally dropping to 3G or 1X and rarely without service. Same thing with I-35 heading south toward Dallas, but th gaps in T-Mobile's coverage aren't quite as bad. The only time T-Mobile has beat Verizon in a rural area in my experience was in the Ozarks. I lost coverage on Verizon, and my fiancé was able to roam onto AT&T. But even in parts of Northeast Kansas just an hour from Kansas City T-Mobile can lose coverage.

Suffice to say that the oft repeated "your mileage may vary" is still very true. what works for you might not work for someone else. I'd go back to Verizon if it wasn't a huge price jump for unlimited. Thankfully T-Mobile is just good enough at home. I do with their building penetration was better. I work in a school, and the teacher's lounge is both a T-Mobile and wifi dead spot.
 
BuffaloTF said:
I would think so... like how cable companies came along and gave phone companies a wakeup call with both phone and internet services... I expect this continued mobile development to push all wireline carriers. There's no good reason why Comcast and Charter, as the big 2, aren't DOCSIS 3.0 across the board... 3.1 shouldn't be far behind them... and with the advantages of already having huge wireline networks, they should be able to push their offerings up even higher than whatever the new wireless offers us.
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Comcast is so pathetically mismanaged. I had a rep stop by my office touting fiber service. I requested a quote. Never received it. Requested again. Nothing. Called the local office. Never recived a quote. Called the regional office. Still no quote.

Now at home, I received an email about gigabit service being available at my address. “Click here to sign up” or some such statement. After clicking and entering my addresss, “Sorry, this isn’t available at your address currently. Sign up and we’ll let you know when it is!” How hard is this stuff?!

Rigby said:
Both AT&T and Verizon will deploy 5G-based fixed wireless Internet access (they are running trials in several cities already). This primarily uses high-band spectrum (which provides high capacity, but doesn't penetrate buildings well, so it works best for fixed wireless with roof-top antennas). T-Mobile's low-band spectrum is less suitable for this, and perhaps as a result of that they are focusing on mobile 5G.
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That seems to be a pretty acceptable solution. Sell / lease a simple roof-top antenna. Wire it to a router and voilà, high-speed wireless Internet access that works exactly like “traditional” cable modem service from the end user’s perspective. Where do I sign up?
 
Chupa Chupa said:
Hmm. Thinking maybe they should finish figuring 4G out first. I switched over to TMob from ATT a couple months ago. When their service is good its great, but when it's poor it's non-existant. Hopefuly their version of 5G will be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
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Or at least penetrate a small building more than 1 foot by a window.
 
name99 said:
You mean will iPhone support 5G before
- the spec exists (NO spec exists today) AND
- the chips haven't been designed (because no spec exists!)

No, I think it is a safe bet that the iPhone will NOT be supporting 5G before these things happen. And, strange to say, big projects like this take TIME. How long do you think it takes from spec to designing the chip to manufacturing it? Three months???

This is a PR move that has nothing to do with "real" 5G. It's a marketing announcement, not a technology announcement.
T-Mobile will simply call whatever their network supports in 2019 5G, just like the carriers called whatever they were providing in 2010 4G, even though they only provided LTE a year later...
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Well what ever the galaxy s8 5g specs are it's doing 1 gigabit on tmobil test lab

 
sudo1996 said:
A wifi station in my house usually gives me 20mbit/s, and I mean to another computer on my LAN. If 5G truly gives you 10gbit/s, then that's really sad.
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Really, LTE service providers promise 50mbit/s, but in real life, it takes like 60 seconds to buffer a low-res YouTube video. What really pissed me off is I ran a speed test, saw 50mbit/s, then tried to load a video in the same spot, waited forever. So I no longer trust speedttest.net...
Click to expand...
Yeah I get that sometimes too. Speedtest app always shows me an accurate reading but I get nowhere near 50Mbps. 4 bars Verizon lte brings in 12-16Mbps at my house. Literally my dsl is faster at 20Mbps.
 
vietLexus_amg said:
It's already Unlimited. only one plan so what else is there to choose from? If you watch the video he said 5G or just Spectrum will work on all bands including the new band 600mhz. If you kept up with Tmobile when John Legere takes CEO. He is the Game Changer. Haha
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starting with the iPhone 6 refresh every year they max out on spectrum. So including this year with their 10 years anniversary I don't see why not including 5G if there is a company to offer it. It might probably be the manufacturer who can provide them with 5G capable. It has to be tested before would green flag for shipment. Apple is never behind it just has to work well for them to implement it like Cost to make/revenue.
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The could only take full advantage of spectrum using Qualcomm modems and that isn't happening anytime soon. Maybe they believe Intel modems are up to the task but I still don't think Apple will move as fast as Samsung in adopting 5G. They are slow to adopt standards that they didn't create and control themselves. Same thing goes for 4k on ATV.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
Ah... Don't change, AT&T... (They did this with "4G" HSPA+. A technology that everyone else considered 3G, but because it was a slightly newer generation that got slightly better speed than anyone else (at the time) they called it 4G.)
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It was T-Mobile that started that whole faux-G crap by relabeling HSPA+ as 4G.
AT&T really had no choice but to play along or risk losing subscribers over falsely perceived standards.
 
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