What is 5G, how fast is it and how is it rolling out across the US and UK?
If you buy a compatible phone, fancy paying a little more for your phone contract and live within a large urban area, the chances are good that you can be using 5G by the end of 2019.
In the US, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon 5G is now live in certain cities while in the UK EE's initial 5G network is live with Vodafone UK 5G live from 3 July and Three UK launching a home broadband service in August, followed by 25 other locations by the end of the year.
As well as the first part of the network rollout, we'll also be seeing a lot of 5G phones launching during the remainder of the year. Several 5G devices are already announced and on sale.
So come with us while we explain the key players in 5G, why it'll probably be coming to your next phone (definitely the one after that) and how it can revolutionise home broadband, too.
What is 5G?
5G is the next evolution in mobile phone networks. In the last two decades we've had the launch of 3G, then 4G, and now 2019 will see the launch of 5G which will roll-out significantly faster than 4G.
With a new network comes new capabilities, from broadband-like speeds on your phone, improved downloading and uploading speeds, and for IoT (Internet of Things) the ability for companies to control devices remotely in a much more efficient and faster way than currently possible.
By 2024 there will be over 1.5 billion of us connected to 5G, according to Ericsson, a company that makes some of the infrastructure that will make all this possible. That journey is kicking off now with the first 5G networks.
Naturally, there will be a price premium for 5G, even if Vodafone has suggested it will come at no extra cost for existing customers. Analyst Paolo Pescatore says that "ultimately, consumer demand for 5G is unproven. Asking them to pay a premium will be challenging.
Pescatore suggests that networks need to explain clearly to users the benefits of 5G as well as what bundled extras or benefits they can get with 5G deals. He also suggests that prices will fall. "The initial premium will quickly erode as we’ve seen with previous generations."
What are the benefits of 5G?
The biggest noticeable benefits will be speed. 5G is expected to deliver somewhere between 80-100Mbps meaning you'll get home broadband-like speed wherever you are. That's going to make a huge difference when it comes to downloading movies, large files, or playing games and for many will mean they could theoretically ditch their home broadband altogether. Think of movie streaming as seamlessly as music streaming currently is.
Another huge benefit is about how quickly you'll be able to push data back up to the network. 4G has always been about getting data - streaming movies or music for example - but with 5G the network will be able to handle all this data much more efficiently. That improved "latency" opens up plenty of possibilities.
That could be new augmented reality experiences, PC-quality gaming on your mobile with "zero lag", or having multi-way video calling without any issues.
Things should also get better on the train and in large populated areas as the 5G network will be better at coping with your movement and when lots of people are connecting to the network at a football game for example.
Beyond general consumer needs, a 5G network will also allow the communication between autonomous cars remotely, a connected traffic infrastructure, and remote factories working without local intervention.
What 5G devices will there be?
Several 5G phones are now available depending on network including the Samsung S10 5G, LG V50 ThinQ, Oppo Reno 5G and Xiaomi's Mi Mix 3 5G.
We're keeping track of all the 5G phones that are coming in 2019 in a separate feature.
5G will also be coming to your home, should you want it - 5G routers are an alternative to fixed line broadband. AT&T is already selling the Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot ($499) in the US with a monthly subscription of $70 for 15GB of 5G data a month.
We're going to see more of these devices such as the HTC 5G Hub with Alexa. There's also a Huawei 5G CPE Pro router, too. The HTC and Huawei devices will be coming to various UK networks.
What carriers will offer 5G in the US?
Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are all launching 5G in the US and some are already offering 5G services in a handful of areas.
Sprint 5G
Sprint is focusing on initial roll-out in these major US cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City. It's due to come to Los Angeles, New York City (Midtown and Lower Manhattan), Phoenix and Washington, DC in the next few weeks.
In total, Sprint said it’ll cover more than 1,000 square miles in all nine cities - and 11.5 million people by the time is has completed the first wave of rollout.
Sprint says it's using a “split mode” so that devices can use 5G NR and LTE Advanced for consistent coverage. Like UK networks, Sprint is currently forgoing the millimeter-wave (mmWave) tech that Verizon and AT&T are.
This is only the beginning - in the coming weeks, we’ll light up #Sprint5G in areas of #Chicago, #LA, #NYC, #Phoenix and #WashingtonDC, giving @Sprint the LARGEST initial #5G rollout in the U.S., covering ~2,180 sq. mi. and 11.5 MILLION people! https://t.co/RI7PoAAQQy pic.twitter.com/USHfIcmctF
— Michel Combes (@MichelCombes) 30 May 2019
Sprint is offering the LG V50 ThinQ as a handset option plus HTC's 5G hub for mobile broadband.
Sprint adds its customers will be among the first in the U.S. to experience Hatch Premium’s mobile 5G cloud gaming service with a three-month trial included with all Sprint 5G phones. The service includes unlimited access to 100 premium mobile games.
Sprint has also confirmed that Google Fi users will be able to take advantage of its 5G network, although there is no indication of when.
T-Mobile 5G
T-Mobile has deployed 5G services in roughly 30 cities including Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and Las Vegas.
AT&T 5G
AT&T has 12 cities ready for 5G wireless: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Raleigh, San Antonio and Waco. It will soon deploy mobile 5G in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.
Verizon 5G
Verizon says it is targeting 30 US cities for 5G "by the end of 2019".
However, it has now launched the service in Chicago and Minneapolis. Current subscribers will need to pay $10 extra a month to use the so-called 5G Ultra Wideband Network.
Initially, there will only be one handset supported - the Moto Z3 with 5G Moto mod. But the Galaxy S10 5G has been confirmed as coming to Verizon later in the year, as has the LG V50 ThinQ.
Verizon says users can expect typical download speeds of 450Mbps, with peak speeds of nearly 1Gbps, and latency less than 30 seconds.
Verizon says it will not throttle 5G data but that throttling will continue when the network drops down to 4G.
Verizon is already offering a 5G home broadband replacement service instead. Verizon 5G Home users have speeds up to 1Gbps - "cut everything you hate about cable" says the corporation in its marketing.
It costs from $70 per month with the first 3 months free (it's cheaper for existing customers) and you also get a free Apple TV 4K or Google Chromecast Ultra, too. Verizon's 5G Home service is available in Los Angeles and Sacramento in California, as well as Houston, Texas and Indianapolis. Other areas are coming soon.
What networks will offer 5G in the UK?
In the UK, Vodafone, EE, and Three have confirmed they are launching commercially available 5G services in 2019 with all three currently conducting various trials around the country. O2 has said that it won't launch a 5G service until 2020.
EE 5G
EE launched its 5G network on 30 May. The initial rollout started with each UK country capital; London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, alongside Birmingham and Manchester. The initial focus will be on outside coverage.
More cities will get 5G coverage during 2019; Bristol, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Hull, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow. These areas are also slated for early 2020: Aberdeen, Cambridge, Derby, Gloucester, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, Worcester and Wolverhampton.
EE tells Pocket-lint that although the roll-out will be slower than its 4G efforts, the network still plans to upgrade 1,500 sites over the coming year - EE says these locations will carry 25% of all the data across its entire network – but only cover 15% of the UK population.
The network believes that customers in busy areas will get speed boosts of up to 100-150Mbps over 4G, with some experiencing up to 1Gbps - 5G performance will improve over time.
Contracts with a phone will start from £54 a month and SIM-only plans will cost from £32 a month. According to our estimates, 5G is going to cost you around a £12 a month premium.
You do also get some swappable benefits such as making services like Netflix and BT Sport exempt from your data limit or a roaming pass. More details here.
EE is also doing a 5G trial at the Glastonbury Festival. However, as there will surely be hardly anybody on site with a 5G phone - apart from journalists and analysts - this will be an opportunity for EE to promote the 5G service to the public rather than anything consequential.
In terms of phones, EE has confirmed it will be selling the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, the LG V50 ThinQ, the Oppo Reno 5G. For mobile broadband, it will also be offering HTC's 5G Mobile Smart Hub and Huawei's 5G CPE Pro router.
Since late last year, we've also known that EE will range the OnePlus 5G smartphone as a network exclusive. It's called the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G.
Despite previously announcing the Huawei Mate X 5G, it was absent from EE's initial device list at the 5G press launch, suggesting that Huawei's Google ban has had an impact on the phone's availability.
Three 5G
Three says it is investing over £2 billion into its 5G rollout and has bought the most 5G spectrum in the UK (100MHz). It claims this will deliver the fastest UK network as a result. It probably can, but this is currently unproven. In the light of Huawei's recent headlines, Three is at pains to point out that its core network tech is from Nokia.
Three's UK 5G network will launch in August though there is a little catch - like Verizon in the US it will be only offering home broadband to begin with. It'll also only be launching in London to begin with, though it has promised a roll-out list of 25 towns and cities by the end of 2019.
Three is holding a launch for journalists and analysts on 1 July when we'll hear more news about the service.
These are: London, Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Reading, Rotherham, Sheffield, Slough, Sunderland and Wolverhampton. There are a few glaring omissions though considering the size of the cities list - no Belfast, Newcastle, Plymouth, Portsmouth or Southampton.
We believe the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G will be coming to Three when it launches 5G and we were also previously told that the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G will also be coming to the network - however, given Huawei's current status this is a bit up in the air. Three says it will be announcing more detail around handset range and pricing in July.
Vodafone 5G
Vodafone UK 5G will go live on 3 July, with 5G roaming following later in the Summer. Crucially, Vodafone has also announced that "5G [will be] priced the same as 4G".
The 5G network will come to seven cities first - Vodafone says that Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and London "will be among the first cities in the world to receive 5G". Although that sounds like press release fluff, it's absolutely right - only a handful of places have it so far.
Vodafone adds that Birkenhead, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Guildford, Newbury, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Warrington and Wolverhampton will follow later this year.
"We plan to have 1,000 5G sites live by 2020," Vodafone has told Pocket-lint, but also confirmed, like EE and Three, that the 5G roll-out will take "place over a period of years, rather than months."
To show that's it not just about big sprawling urban metropolises, it also plans to launch 5G in the Scottish Highlands, Cornwall and the Lake District.
In order to get 5G deployed as quickly as possible, Vodafone has teamed up with O2 to build a joint 5G network. This will mostly be outside of the larger cities where the networks say they will still work autonomously. The pair already do some network-sharing and also run a joint venture that manages network sites (but not the equipment itself).
In a 5G test at Manchester Airport, Vodafone's trial network was shown to yield download speeds around four times that of 4G - not amazing, but a start. A 656MB episode of Tin Star downloaded in 45 seconds, while the whole series took around six minutes. On 4G, the series took 26 minutes. Vodafone has since switched on another large test site, at Birmingham's New Street Station.
Vodafone has confirmed it will be offering Huawei's Mate 20 X 5G, the Xiaomi Mi Mix 5G and Samsung' S10 5G, too. In terms of home broadband on 5G, Vodafone will use HTC's 5G Mobile Smart Hub and Huawei's 5G CPE Pro router, too.
O2 5G
O2 emerged from the Ofcom spectrum auction with a good deal of 5G spectrum, but has said that it's not going to have a widespread 5G offering until 2020 "to coincide with the wider availability of 5G handsets".
However, it will roll out some 5G services in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London during 2019 and we also know that it will be carrying the Huawei Mate X 5G phone.
What is 5G E?
Trying to get ahead of the competition, AT&T in the US has started marketing a service it calls 5G E. Standing for 5G Evolution, the service is nothing more than a slightly faster version of 4G with some branding sparkle. AT&T argue that the service is as fast as 5G services when they official launch, but the difference here, is that it isn't actually 5G.
AT&T customers using an iPhone running iOS 12.2 or some Android devices will see the 5G E logo when connected. Fellow US network Sprint isn't that impressed and has opened legal proceedings.
What hardware will 5G phones use?
Many of these new handsets will run Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 platform and the X50 5G-capable modem which was first previewed back in 2016. The X50 modem has some limitations: it doesn't cover all types of 5G network and it's a separate modem, so doesn't cover 2G-4G (that needs separate hardware).
Qualcomm has subsequently announced the Snapdragon X55 modem, and this is a more comprehensive offering that the X50 being a truely global 5G modem, covering all network types - as well as covering 2G-4G as well. The modem will support download speeds of up to 7Gbps and uploads of 3Gbps.
Currently, the modem is an add-on chip to the 855 platform, meaning that phone makers can choose to make 4G 855 devices. That's set to change with the next-generation that'll be announced in late 2019 - it'll integrate 5G on the Snapdragon 655 platform itself (yes, logic dictates it'll be called 655) - and that should find its way into more affordable devices.
Qualcomm says there are 20+ device manufacturers lined up to produce hardware including 5G Hotspots, routers, and of course smartphones in 2019 alone, with that number expected to grow as more companies embrace 5G.
Apple isn't one of them though. Rumours currently suggest Apple will wait until 2020 to launch a 5G iPhone, opting to use Intel's 5G modem instead after falling out with Qualcomm.
As you might expect, Samsung and Huawei are also developing their own 5G modems. Huawei's Balong 5000 will work alongside the Kirin 980 platform and will debut in Huawei's first 5G phones to be announced at Mobile World Congress 2019, while Samsung's Exynos Modem 5100 will likely find there way into Samsung's S10 5G offering and other important flagship devices from the company going forward.
MediaTek makes chipsets for many budget phones and it too has recently announced the Helio M70 5G platform that will come to devices in 2020.
Beyond phones, you can expect to see 5G in cars, laptops, VR and AR headsets, and a host of other devices creating a much more "connected world".
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