On paper 5G is better: less power, better SNR, longer ranges.

The problem is the frequency spectrum: the higher the frequencies, the more bandwidth but the worst range. And it’s very crowded.

5G has been mostly deployed in the upper spectrum and mmwave in really crowded city downtowns, in part to show off the speeds reliably but also cell density and the fact there’s nothing on those frequencies, they can just deploy them. The problem is those gigabit speeds are only possible on the high frequencies, therefore it costs range. It’s exactly like 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi.

When it comes to the longer ranges, you want the lower frequencies, but the problem is the good spectrum is all used by TV, 3G and 4G already! And they’re long range so you need more spacing to prevent interference. So they have to deploy 5G on the less desirable spectrum, at least for now, until they can get rid of 3G in full and free up space for 5G on the lower bands. Technically 5G can also be mixed with 4G, but because it has to share you lose a lot of benefits when lots of 4G clients are connected, like the variable channel sizes and multiple devices talking at the same time.

So the real world result, currently, is sometimes it’s about as good because it’s sharing with 4G, sometimes it’s bad because it’s on the higher frequencies that can’t go through walls as well, and if you’re lucky, 3G has been fully removed and reallocated and you have pretty solid 5G. It was the same thing with 4G: 3G was taking the best spectrum, so 4G was originally often worse than 3G before they had enough 4G antennas and got rid of 2G and took its spectrum for 4G.

Plus, we know carriers are good at taking good tech and making it needlessly shitty our outright misleading like AT&T’s 5Ge thing or Comcast’s attempt at “10G” network. They’re rather your phone show the 5G logo than let you stay on 4G even if the signal is better there, and that makes people think 5G kinda sucks.

One of the things 5G wanted to accomplish is serve IoT devices far away with low power, by using small channels and low data rates without affecting the high bandwidth devices on the same tower. They thought about range and device count a lot this round. It’s just, faster is the feature people talk about the most, the rest is just technical stuff is a bit too hard to digest for the average consumer.

Some really good comments here. It definitely all depends on the frequency band your phone connects to. At lower frequencies such as 700 megahertz with skinny channels the 5G speeds will be no better than 4G and LTE. However, at the higher frequencies like 2.5 gigahertz, 3.7 gigahertz, etc. and up into the millimeter wave, they are super short frequencies and do not penetrate walls and stuff well, but are way faster. This leads to tighter tower grids in order to penetrate buildings with that higher frequency. That also means less people per tower taking up your bandwidth. A tower that can go 10 miles (700 megahertz) will have a lot more users on it than a tower that will go half a mile for example.

Edit: Another thing is that tighter tower grids make for better wireless emergency alerts. Imagine a tornado warning being sent to a tower that covers 10 miles. Every one in that 10 mile tower footprint would get the warning. Whereas typically tornadoes are tiny. And a tower that covers half a mile getting a tornado warning would mean that that tornado is a lot closer to you.

I don’t feel it’s a downgrade at all. I get nearly as good download as my home connection and significantly faster upload. Never had any issues with 5G or 5G UC. T-mobile and iPhones.

The problem is most services advertising 5G don’t actually meet 5G specifications.

It’s cool though, because the same thing happened with 4G and 3G.

A lot of it not only depends on your provider, but the cell tower you connect to.

5G at my home is trash tier, but it doesn’t matter because I’m on WiFi at home.

20.2 down, 0.37 up. :(

Eh, if the network is in place, it’s great. Better speeds, more stable connections (for me anyway), and that’s definitely something 4g lacked overall.

The problem is that 5g hasn’t reached saturation where you can guarantee it everywhere, and downtime away from cities can be longer than on previous network standards.

It is difficult to quantify stability as an end user though. I can only be certain about my experience, and that of people I have enough contact with to experience their use of their connection. That’s a very small amount of sampling.

That being said, 5g has been miles better for me. I can’t remember the last time it was down, and we’re in the boonies relatively speaking. Small town, house on the edge of town. Back before 5g got rolled out, data was useless here at home, and only slightly better in town as a whole. Same at my best friend’s house in the city, and in other towns with family.

Now? I can stream whatever I want over data with no issues. That’s a massive improvement.

Now, how much of that was just them actually implementing 5g well and the 4g having been done shitty? No clue. But considering the multiple places I’ve used my data plan, and what others I trust to not be idiots have said, it is probably the 5g just being better as a technology.

I guess it really depends on your area. I hear stories that it’s the bee’s knees and then other ones where the signal is so congested, especially if using a mvno. Personally I’m sticking with 4g, in my area 5g is about the same in speed unless you want to stay up til like 4am to get a decent boost.

I don’t really notice a difference from 5G data compared to 4G

Well, the 5G signal itself is better.

It is different from 4G, so it does require reevaluating infrastructure placement.

The same thing happened with 4G. It is weaker than 3G, but faster.

Same thing with 5Ghz wifi. It is weaker, but faster, than 2.4Ghz.

A motorcycle gets better gas mileage, more nimble, and less space than a car or truck. But there is a lot you can’t haul on a motorcycle.

For me speed increase is pretty significant. Testing with Ookla’s Speedtest I get around 60-100 Mbps download with 4G and around 300 - 500 for 5G so sometimes it’s faster that my Wi-Fi which usually is around 300 - 400.

Realistically though I do not feel this difference, 4G seems enough. Do not see significant difference in battery life as well. In the past I think 5G did eat more battery where I am so I stayed on 4G for a long time before trying 5G again.

Any T-Mobile users here may want to checkout !t_mobile@lemmy.ml

Unfortunately there was a bit of hysteria around 5G, but I would personally prefer more research be conducted on the safety of 5G before mass implementation. There’s enough research out at the moment saying that more research needs to be conducted, but there’s a potential for adverse outcomes.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1058454/full

It’s better if you aren’t vaxxed, if you are there is a big chance you are getting irradied with it and you become into a mind-less 5G controlled robot, if you aren’t vaxxed just enjoy better speeds and service quality.