Enhanced 5G services offering higher speeds aren’t yet available to many, but there’s good news for AT&T 5G Plus – the faster service will now be fully usable by the iPhone 12 and up.
The carrier had previously indicated that only 2022 devices would be able to take advantage of the full range of frequencies …
Background
There’s never been a communications standard that carriers couldn’t make more complicated.
In the run-up to the launch of 5G, we were promised that the new mobile data standard would offer gigabit speeds. It was only later that we learned that this would be limited to mmWave 5G, which was more akin to Wi-Fi in its availability and range.
Speeds have been gradually increasing since the 5G rollout, but part of the expansion was delayed over fears of interference with aircraft radio altimeters close to airports. That was eventually resolved, and the mess was blamed on a mix of government bureaucracy and carrier secrecy.
Each carrier naturally chose different terminology for enhanced 5G, so we have seen 5G UC, 5G UWB, and 5G+.
AT&T 5G Plus
Even more frequencies were subsequently made available, with AT&T spending more than $9B in an FCC auction to get access to the 3.45GHz range. Together with C-Band, these midrange frequencies have been branded AT&T 5G Plus.
AT&T initially indicated that this latest range would only be supported by 2022 smartphones and later, which meant that only iPhone 14 owners would get access to it among Apple’s line-up. However, CNET reports some good news on this front.
AT&T is updating its list of devices that will be capable of connecting to its latest 5G midband networks. After originally saying that it might only enable support for its new 3.45 GHz network on some of the latest and greatest 2022 devices, the nation’s third-largest carrier now tells CNET it will bring support for the spectrum to all of its devices that currently support its C-band spectrum.
That list as of press time consists of over 30 products, including all 5G iPhones going back to 2020’s iPhone 12 line, the Samsung Galaxy S21 and S22 lines and Google’s Pixel 6 and 6 Pro.
The new spectrum won’t come into play until later in the year, but AT&T says that 5G Plus should cover 200 million people by the middle of next year.
5G competing with cable, and Wi-Fi hotspots
As 5G gets faster and more ubiquitous, it is beginning to take over from both cable-based home broadband services, and public Wi-Fi hotspots.
Back in May, an Opensignal report revealed that you’ll generally see faster speeds on 5G than on public Wi-Fi networks.
For average download speeds, sub 6Ghz 5G now comes in at 112.9 Mbps. That’s 4.8 times faster than public Wifi at 23.3 Mbps.
And if you have access to mmWave 5G, Opensignal found it to deliver average download speeds of 571.6 Mbps, a massive 24.6 times faster than public wifi.
5G home internet is also starting to take off as a rival to conventional cable-based packages.
It’s been just about a year since Verizon and T-Mobile launched their 5G home internet services and they’re both building momentum.
T-Mobile said its 5G home internet is available for 40 million households (now 45 million) and Verizon shared in January that its 5G home internet is available for 20 million.
While Verizon upped its incentives with deals like 50% off for existing customers, T-Mobile announced its own similar promotions.
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