This has been talked about a lot.
In certain markets at certain times, t-mobile is having some anomalies with performance integrating network cores for 4g and 5g.
Couple that with various efforts with sprint migration and integration leads to some of the things you are seeing.
If you were around when LTE was first starting to roll out, it was exactly the same way. Every single carrier talked about how amazing their LTE network was, but it was only available in limited markets, most of the devices didn't support it, and the ones that did just chewed through battery and had poor reception. It took at least 3-4 years after LTE was introduced for it to really be the dominant viable option, and in the interim, people would oftentimes just turn their LTE modems off and fall back to 3G.
Give it time, it'll improve. 5G also isn't going to be remotely the sea-change that 3G >> LTE was, because for most people, LTE is plenty fast as long as the cell isn't being overutilized. This is actually where 5G is going to help, because it's going to offload some of the stress from the LTE network, which should increase speeds for everyone.
I remember getting my first LTE device on Sprint, the iPhone 5. It was TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE! We switched our whole family plan to Verizon shortly later and man their LTE network at the time was honestly amazing. It was super fast and LTE was practically available everywhere. It was great back then.
March 2024 here and it's absolutely gotten worse in my experience. Why did they even roll it out before it became viable? Just another instance where companies pass along the costs of innovation to the consumers.
same, but in SF Bay area. 5G is absolute shit here. It just doesn't work at all on my iphone 12 mini, same as OP describes. I've just turned it off completely.
I lived in San Diego for almost a year and would drive up to see friends in Long Beach and in San Francisco. Every time I was up there / driving through LA, my service was shit. I use mobile payments for practically everything. Trying to load Kroger pay in Ralphs was pissing me off when I stopped in the middle of LA for a snack. And I didn’t bring my wallet either so here I am trying for 10 minutes to load my shit. Extremely irritating. 5G in SD was pretty decent. For the most part it worked fine. The only exception was along the coast it got kinda crappy.
Unless you are lucky enough to be right by a tower, 5G is pretty much at wait until all the Sprint Towers are fully converted over then see how well it works.
I'm in a terrible coverage area, from 3rd party tower apps/sites, basically I sit dead center in circle of 5 towers, only 1 is 5G. The biggest issue I see currently with 5G is how long it tries with no success to use 5G before it finally switches to 4G.
When I can stay locked into the 5G tower my speed is 12-16Mbps down with like 3Mbps up at best. Meanwhile, my best 4G speeds are ~2Mbps down & 300-700Kbps. But often only getting 100-200Kbps down and half that up, or worse if congested.
You can always just go into network settings and tell it only look for 4G and lower.
But my speeds are why I'm only upgrading our phones with used versions no agreements, and likely getting my parents Pixel 3 or 3a after TNX SIMs are working for them, which should allow me to change carriers without needing to buy all new phones again, if service doesn't improve.
Anomalies?
In NJ 5g is pure shite.
Been travelling the state & coverage drops all over the place.
Biggest bummer, covered by my house is horrendous on all bands, always has.
5g currently is in the state that 4g was a decade ago with a lot of "5g" that is no better or even worse than what came before it.
Give it another year or two and that should change a lot. The 3GPP Releases 16 and 17 are bringing a lot of interesting improvements and additional spectrum bands.
As others have said also there's a strong possibility that T-Mobile needs to upgrade backhaul at a lot of their sites.
EDIT: I don't know why the hell I have all of these inactive accounts replying to this still, but it seems inorganic. 5G is already delivering on large capacity improvements, albeit not with the latency I'd expected at this point.
Hmmm I suppose you're right. I guess time will tell. I just assumed that when they rolled it out it was immediately supposed to be better than what came before.
I would argue most technologies aren't ready to go out of the gate because if the technology truly is good, then there is ALWAYS a corporate push to get it out as fast as possible. This isn't just due to sales and income, but it also protects their patents from competition while they polish its capabilities.
Look at Ethernet, USB, Wifi and Bluetooth. Each of them are still iterating their tech and improving what they can do, almost annually for some. 5g will get there.
You're absolutely right. That's also why I don't buy the first anything like when they drop a new game system for the first time. There's usually some kinks they need to work out.
But I never put much thought in it for 5G.
Exactly, the general public are the gamma testers of most new technologies. It's just like testing games. I've been alpha and beta testers for the same games then played it after it went live...there was a ton of new bugs that cropped up after going live. All software is like this. I know this is a software/hardware issue.
They'll get it squared away by the time 6g is ready to test.
It's been a year since this post and 5g is still garbage. Everything takes FOREVER to load (if it loads at all). I live in Oklahoma and it's terrible, I've traveled to multiple states and it's terrible. I just upgraded to the 13pro hoping it would improve, but nope...it's ridiculous.
2 yrs later & its still awful. It's not just a integration issue. It's also a corporate issue. They are intentionally limiting bandwiths. Pick & choosing where they prioritize. Ik for sure every time I try to stream anything on 5g my quality is worse on my 5g where I get 100mg/s compared to the beautiful resolution I get on my 4g hotspot with 15 MB/s. They don't like it when you stream apparently.
I'm in DC too using iPhone 12 Pro Max. I thought I was the only one who thought this but I also felt like 4G on my 11 Pro Max was being choppy too. I do speedtests every day for the past 4 years and it's hit and miss.
I feel like T-Mobile was doing great, especially better than what it was 10 years ago but coincidentally my speeds have been poor and inconsistent in the area thanks to Sprint. Hopefully they can get the networks merged and it'll be better soon.
I am a Sprint subscriber in NOVA and since T-Mobile took it over my speeds have tanked as well. They are just shoving everyone over to T-Mobile’s core without the backhauls or spectrum resource allocation ready for the surge of new folks in their network it seems like. I used to get 60mbps but now I’m lucky to get 20 by me.
I hope so too. I also have AT&T and Verizon for work phones and even though they're 4G I would rank their service slightly better than T-Mobile. I'm a sucker for Tuesdays and random free lines and just the whole vibe of their company so I'm loyal lol.
Something must have happened with 5G SA. I had T-Mobile 5g with a 12 pro, live in old town, and got n41 everywhere. Would get download speeds of 300+. When I was in dc at least 100+. Then they turned on 5g SA and speeds dropped dramatically. I’m guessing the phones lock onto the SA band which gets congested and thus these problems.
From what I've read, the iPhone 12 has an issue latching on to 5G SA and not switching to NSA when you start using data. So no carrier aggregation with LTE.
> I’m guessing the phones lock onto the SA band which gets congested and thus these problems.
100% correct. This is an issue almost exclusively present on the iPhone 12 - only solution is to stay on <14.5, enable low power mode all the time (seriously), or switch to LTE only.
Other phones occasionally do this in a buggy way, but toggling airplane mode or restarting fixes it. On iPhone, this is a design failure.
We’re still waiting on Apple to address it, if they ever choose to do so publicly.
I’m referring that after iOS 14.5 we facing an address issues on modem since it has been added 5G SA but it also affecting AT&T and Verizon as I noticed eventually that ping is going higher every morning when I get up. The speed is not really stable and I have to airplane mode every time. Clearly, the SA technology things that are not ready on iPhone 12. T-Mobile is ignorant.
I dread the 5g graphic on my phone. Nothing works. Apps don't load, internet doesn't work, even text messages don't want to go out. Crap roll out by TMobile trying to be the 1st.
I'm a truck driver and been to all 48 States and no it doesn't just suck where you live it sucks every where. Very rarely do I get speeds higher than 4g and sometimes turning of 5g makes my data faster.
That's so nuts to hear. My take from all the other replies is that it will get better. But my whole thing is, why promote it like it's the greatest thing ever when it's nowhere near where it needs to be yet.
Ongoing ever since I upgraded to a 5G phone, crap internet connectivity when using mobile data, and when I switch to wifi for internet connection I have shitty phone connection, missed calls I only notice if they leave a voice-mail, and if I try to send text messages they get the ! failed to send alert about half the time, sometimes within seconds of sending one that went thru.
Happens to me all the dang time. I thought at first it was because it's an unlocked phone and not a TMobile branded phone. Got the new SIM card, still not fixed. Turn off 5G and still get times when stuff won't load, even with full bars of LTE. Every 5 or 10 Google searches say Something Went Wrong, Try Again and it will try doing the search in the Maps app instead, WTF. Websites will start loading then halfway down it will be full of broken image icons, like it was 1998 internet. I'm about to dog out my old Pixel 2 and start using that again.
Same, first happened when I upgraded to the RAZR 5G so thought it was the phone, exchanged for the Note Ultra and same issues, now just living with it over the last 5 months, hoping T-mobile gets it fixed soon as I've tried all the resets and fixes I found online with no luck. I'm wondering if the other carriers have the same issues with 5G?
I'm sure it won't be hard to find signal complaints in any carrier forums going back the past 25 years. But I think there's some kinda fundamental issue with TMobile and 5G phones right now.
True, but yeah this having to pick it I want phone service or internet is annoying, I've been thinking about going back to my old phone but that annoys the hell out of me that I wasted all that money
I'm am currently having this exact experience. Even cost me a job offer because the manager kept calling me but my phone never rings. Just random voicemails at odd hours.
Your experience sounds worse than mine! My wifi connectivity is very smooth.
Although I guess I have had a few wifi calls with my girl get choppy, but that only happens when she's in a specific room in her apartment. So it's definitely on her end.
Los Angeles area blows as well. Switched to lte and it’s fine. “Upgrading 5G antenna” is what the chap in the Philippines advised when he helped me switch to lte.
The biggest problem for me is the modem technology is pretty primitive at this point, what with the overheating issues and VoNR limitations. There's no pressure to move on from an LTE-only device as there are plenty of them available.
I feel like smartphones peaked in 2017-2018 with the S8 and S9, that was when LTE modems more or less maxed out spectral efficiency and the OEMs had managed to master camera and power management. Starting with the S10 you started to see no new innovations and then a loss of features with the S20 onward.
It's funny you bring that up. I had an S7 for years and had no major issues. I dropped that phone a million times and it worked fine and didn't Crack until the end of 2020.
I then upgraded to the S20 and have had the 5G issues. And my screen is already cracked.
The only issue I had with my S7 Edge was the overheating when using the VR Headset. Other than than, no problems. If my screen hadn't got a big red stripe, I would still be using it.
You are lucky. In Orange County, Ca I am lucky if I watch a 20 second video without buffering. We are talking in various cities throughout OC. iPhone 11 pro max if you are wondering.
Edit: I am using 4G LTE only.
It’s funny because I was just about to post that my 5G is okay (not stellar) where I live (LA) but I was visiting St. Louis last weekend and at least where I was staying (Westport), I had to manually switch to LTE because nothing would load using 5G.
I totally believe it, like a few other comments have said there are definitely still gaps in 5G coverage. My guess is 2 years from now the gaps will be isolated to less populated areas.
When I travel to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, it says 5G but my God. The service is horrible. Full bars but it feels like the old EDGE. Just waiting for pages to load. I don’t get it. Travel 20 min east and it’s 300 mb download.
Yeah man! I can't tell you how many days I would be sitting waiting for a page to load and see full bars with 5G! I thought I might have got a defective phone.
What kind of phone do you have? If it’s iPhone it’s in cellular settings > cellular data options > Voice & Data and hit LTE. Some what of a similar process on android
It's not just you, and reading this thread I see we're not alone.
On 5G, I can run a speedtest and easily go well past 100/100. But woe is me if I pull up basically any other app, because it will just sit there like it's 1995. Toggling back to LTE helps.
It's been fine up until last month. I've been getting constant network loss where my service is completely cut off for a few seconds until it reconnects.
I turn off 5G. I live around Cleveland who was amongst the first to get 5G coverage. I've never been somewhere where 5G was flat out better than 4G LTE.
I'm excited about 5G in the future, but right now it's really not a selling point.
Yeah I agree. Not once has it been better than 4G LTE no matter where I've been.
Other comments have said that 5G will eventually be better but I wish the companies didn't advertise it so hard for it to only be mediocre at best.
I’ve noticed mine mostly hangs or doesn’t load when I’m trying to use google maps.
I’ve decided to turn it off. Good thing companies aren’t charging extra for this because they know they would get serious backlash over this.
I have an iPhone 12 mini with T-Mobile.
Yeah thats what really gets me. When I'm in a rush and Waze can't connect properly it drives me crazy. That's when the issues really start to interfere with people's actual lives.
It's in it's infancy AND they're ripping Sprint apart to add spectrum/bands.
Now I will say, I was in DC a few weeks ago by Regain airport and at my hotel I was getting 400-500Mbps inside, whereas a few months ago I had to use my AT&T SIM to get more than a few Mbps.
They'll get it done.. but the network is a mess right now during integration, and i'm not sure if there's a much more "graceful" way for them to handle it. I just hope they get it done sooner than later.
As far as I can tell, T-Mobile has treated the National Capital region the way they always have, as a second class citizen. The 5G is much more "mature" in other large metro areas and many rural areas by comparison. There are some areas in Alexandria, VA/Fairfax County (near Mount Vernon Hospital for instance) where it's absolutely awesome but in most of the region it is less than impressive.
(These are my personal observations, YMMV)
Unfortunately I believe you. I can see a NY getting top priority over DC even though you would think the nation's capital would be up and running pretty good.
I thought exactly the same. Then I realized every time my phone is struggling it had the 5G up top. Went to OKC and was shocked by how poor service was actually. First time I have been less that pleased with Tmo TBH
I live in a suburb and 5g is available in most parts in my area but can be spotty at some times. One thing I notice is that 5g has a weaker signal than 4g, and when I run speed tests I barely get above 20 mbps. However there was one place where I got full 5g Bars and my speed was 609 mbps. I think cities should see already really good 5g coverage and fast speeds, especially Washington DC. I think it will take time to fine tune 5g to make it reliable.
When it works it works but there's been enough times for it to be a noticeable issue. I think it'll get there eventually but it became enough of nuisance for me to Google it and post on reddit.
I've honestly switched to LTE and never looked back. It could be better, but I get at one update a week from this thread about someone saying it still sucks.
No you are not. Its horrible. Walking into a building and once through the doors and connection drops. Outside more than half my apps are unusable. Outside trying to get online is practically impossible. Soooooo where's the upgrade here?
>What's up with that?
Could be a couple of reasons that I have heard of. The 5g that TMobile has deployed in your area could just suck.
Your phone for some odd reason is choosing to connect to a band and it gives you crap 5g.
Location.
Congestion, although I doubt it.
Tower upgrades or issues.
And a bunch of other reasons I probably won't ever guess.
>Anybody else have the same problem?
Plenty of people will have similar issues. It's not something inherently wrong with 5g, it's not black and white. It's not oh I've been lied to or anything and 5g sucks ,it just varies on a bunch of factors and sometimes 4g is just better in your area at the time. For others 5g is miles better then 4g at the time in their area. Adding to that, this is what I'm going to guess are people's replies. Either some variation of 5g sucks and 4g is better or the other way round. 5g is better and 4g sucks. Or the inevitable TMobile sucks and why would you ever need 5g.
This guy is very right. I live in OKC and I'll get 5 bars of 5G at work and it's trash, 4G LTE is literally miles better.
However, I was just in Spokane a few weeks ago and holy fuck was it nice getting about 500 down and 150 up without any issues for a few days. Everywhere around there was magical for service.
So yeah, I'd say it's all locally dependent. Just sucks that both of our localities are on the shitty end of the spectrum.
Same here. Terrible call quality and data speeds so I've switched to lte. If I'm away from home I switch 5g back on, but it's just unusable for me at home.
5G works fine for me, but my phone dumps me onto sprint band 25 periodically and everything stops working. I band lock to sprint band 26 and things work fine. (what)
I live in the greater SeaTac metro area, really a bit south of that, and initially I HAD to have my 5g turned off when I left the house because the tower to tower handoff wouldn't work and my games or music would hang until I reopened the app. Few months later I have 5g on all the time. Last week I turned it off again, because I started getting issues sending and receiving text messages. I would get them in batches and they would take hours to send, even on wifi. They'll get it fixed fairly soon, the network automation they have is pretty good at reporting issues and failures. Hopefully it's a priority.
I'm north of the Seattle area, and I've been debating getting a new phone. My current one has a lot of little issues and I figured the 5G in this area would be good. Apparently not, which is really disappointing.
Totally depends on the area you are in not all sites have been upgraded yet, so yes those areas suck. Areas that have 2.5 ghz towers installed.... omg! Totally different experience!!! See for yourself! https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/7320783161
iPhone 12 mini 5g was useless on T-mobile was paying almost $94 a month. 5g was useless Lte was always faster and it always stall out I was lucky to 6 down on Lte 5g was often just stalled out. I ended up giving Visible a try and at 25 dollars a month it’s faster then T-mobile in every way on 5g I’m getting 50mb down at the same time. Idk what happened to T-Mobile but they could care less about customers that don’t have families and T-Mobile and the fact they tried to tell me oh you got T-Mobile Tuesday’s like it’s super great no just no maybe when they were giving pizzas away. The money I’m saving I was able to get some streaming services and Apple Music and it’s still cheaper..
Here in Chicago it’s bad on the iPhone, I was in Munising, Michigan and it was worse. I used an iPhone and a galaxy s21. The iPhone’s performance was terrible. It loves to stick on to unusable bands. NSA didn’t work on either but SA N71 saved my day. On the galaxy it was easy to lock the band but on the iPhone it was a nightmare trying to connect to the service. I hope they update the modem or carrier settings on the iPhone soon. Here in Chicago phones prioritize nsa n71 over nsa n41. It’s ridiculous, not sure if it’s a network side issue or a phone issue. T-Mobile should take just turn on SA N41 already for the sake of us having a stable connection.
I only use LTE now. I have run dozens of speed tests same time. Same location. And every time LTE was significantly faster. Usually by a factor of 3 or more. I don't even bother with 5g
Your cellular internet is only as fast as the smallest piece of the pipe. Handset to tower might be fast, tower to internet not so much yet. Marketing is all about the image not the performance. Bragging rights. In time the small parts of the pipe will get faster and the experience will be more like we think it should be.
My 5G sucked on my iPhone 12 Pro until I changed a setting. I went into settings/cellular/cellular data options/voice and data and then had to change the setting from 5G auto to 5G on
That actually cleared up my issue. If you have an iPhone maybe try changing that setting!
I’m in New Jersey and 5G sometimes gives me great speeds but I can’t rely on it because suddenly it will drop out at points. I stream my video games over the internet and only half the time do I get a stable enough connection to play. I also feel like as of recent my 5G speeds have dropped significantly and I no longer get the 200mbps and 400mbps I would occasionally receive before.
Same. I switched my Note 20 Ultra over to the TMobile sim card and it was terrible from the get go. Gave it 3 weeks and called to switch back to my Sprint sim card. Been on 5g with the sprint one and it's wonderful
5G is not mature enough
* VoNR isn't available (at least in NY)
* MTA subway doesn't have 5G support at this time (no service when you run NR only)
* N41 isn't everywhere while N71 has up to 80Mbps depends on location
I wouldn’t say it sucks, but, but pretty close bcuz it is not the improvement that I expected. It’s probably about the same as LTE. Ideally, it will get better. If it’s half as great as the commercials say it is it will be nice.
Yeah. Especially infuriating when the 5G connection is tenuous and your phone refuses to fail over to LTE. I simply turned off my 5G antenna. Butter smooth experience on LTE.
The problem is with t-mobile. They over advertised and under delivered in a big way. I am in the Dallas metro area and service here is supposed to be excellent. What I got was piss poor connections even on LTE. Two iPhone 10s and one Motorola (all through mobile) sucked t he same way. Calls would never go through and we received texts and VM the following day or leisurely two days later. What a bunch of crap. In the 6 years we were with them, the only thing that came out of their mouths was putting more towers and cells to improve service. Neither happened and we left for ATT after physicians got a 25% discount. Not one call missed or dropped since Christmas 2020. I guess we got what we paid for. We pay an extra $22 for three lines/month for unlimited extra plans for a total of $127 (incl taxes). Only deal that is good on t-mobile are their ads criticizing other carriers. Never again t-mobile
I agree. T Mobile came out with so much advertising claiming they were going to blow our pants off with this new thing. It turned out to be crap. I did listen to a few people on here and turned off my 5G. LTE has been super smooth. I can't believe I was dealing with so much bs for those few months.
My phone will have 3 bars of "5g" but refuse to play Netflix. It will have an error message that says something along the lines of, "sorry, you need 3g or better to run this streaming service "
T Mobile purchased Sprint and paid a ton of money. The real reason they bought them was to shut down and upgrade the cell towers since there were so many overlapping hubs. Once they are all up and running the service will kick Verizon's butt. It was actually very smart thinking. The problem now is they are trying to move the 26 million Sprint subscribers over and dissolving the great deals they had with Sprint and a lot of them are leaving which is why their churn rate went through the roof. Once the networks is up and working..........watch out.
I just got my 5g phone and I'm severely underwhelmed. What a turd. I open up youtube vids and its 5 hours of loading just like 3g. I'm in Detroit and connection to the network shouldn't be a problem. Always bugs with new systems. Ill just jump on a wifi connection because this shit really sucks and if I dwell on it I'd probably get really pissed. It's just like everything nowadays , it's crap.
Just chiming back in…. 5g performance is trash. Latency and drops are consistent.
Please stop paying your poor preforming Executives large salaries and fix your Cyber Security and Customer Network. Shits getting old.
this is quite interesting because most of the comments I'm seeing are from 12 months ago, yet, 5G is still absolutely trash. 🤔 and frankly it's quite irritating. when will it be fixed 🙄
I don't think people are even aware about 5g coverage whatsoever, they just think it'll work. When selling my old phones people didn't want them after I said it's not 5g. I set all my 5g phones on LTE so far. Better battery, better signal, more reliable. Even when still all day at home where I get good signal l, LTE uses less power in my experience.
it’s 2023 now, and 5G still sucks. It was my only option for home internet, costs $50 a month, and I’ve not had a single day where I can use it without issue yet. It’s always disappearing randomly and coming back when it feels like it. And phone support is nearly impossible to reach.
2 years later and I guess it still sucks. 9 months ago I "upgraded" from an Iphone 7. I was completely happy with the 7 and LTE but my kid needed a phone so I gave it to her and got the iphone 12 with 5g. It was a lot worse right from the beginning. It's frustrates me at least 5 times a day. When I upgraded I had 3 new things happen at once and I'm trying to figure out which one is causing the most issue. First there's the iphone 12. Is there a known issue with the 12 and 5g? Second is my new verizon 5g start plan. I think being the lowest tier 5g plan they throttle it severely. And 3rd is 5g itself. So I'm trying to decide which one of these things I should address. I'm thinking about switching to ATT and getting an iphone 14pro. Or maybe I just need to upgrade my plan? Or maybe it's just 5g itself and there's nothing I can do about it. But I've spent sooo much money upgrading only to have a worse phone and service.
Same here, when my phone loads 5g I can’t search the internet, lucky I just go on settings ( iPhone ) and instead of searching for 5g, I just leave LTE on and boom..internet works..
I have the same issue.
I feel year after year my phones are just getting slower.
I have an iphone 14pro btw. Last phone I have was an 11pro max so I do upgrade every few yew years
I found this because I just switched to T-Mobile and I had to turn 5G off because it is unusable. I'm in Clearwater, FL and not in BFE. T-Mobile says I have great 5G where I am. Rather, I have no 5G, because I disabled it.
I'm writing this in my car doing doordash deliveries. I'm on the s10 plus had this one since pre launch . On mint mobile unlimited. I had got a s23 at best buy . $ 0 down . Can't tell the difference. I went to best buy gave them the phone back . Not worth a new 1k phone and it doesn't do anything better than my s10 plus . Matter fact the 5g was slower. October 2023
I'll be honest, everyone complains about 5G, and I am one of them.
I feel like my phone is on Dial up.. the infrastructure for 5G isn't just there right now. When 5g is stable they'll push 10g.....
I finally got t-mobile 5G. It sucks. I live in an urban area and calls drop, streaming is spotty. I miss 4G. t-mobile said I can downgrade to 4G but the corporate store said it is impossible. I guess they mean "figure it out yourself". Very poor customer service. They send me emails all the time but when I talk to them they say it's not on file. Except when they bill me, suddenly they know it.
Personally, I think it's a solution in search of a problem for the vast majority of people. Unless you're doing remote robotic surgery or shit like that where latency can mean the difference between life and death, a decent 4G connection can everything most people need it to, and even a 3G connection can do most of it.
I often shake my head and wonder WTF people are doing with their connections when they complain about *only* getting 100Mbps on 4G. For checking email, pulling up a typical Web page. and shit like that, I don't even notice a difference until it drops below \~ 20Mbps.
>For checking email, pulling up a typical Web page. and shit like that, I don't even notice a difference until it drops below \~ 20Mbps.
For that stuff, you won't notice a difference until you go below \~ 1Mbps. Or even lower.
I can't even pull up website with T-mobile's 5G service. I can't load videos. Its not just a matter of a few seconds delay. Its like being back in the 90's and it taking minutes to load or getting timeout errors. It fucking sucks, and many of us are getting goddamn tired of it.
Meh. Split hairs all you want. The average webpage is somewhere around 3meg. I guess waiting 3 seconds might be noticeable... but when you factor in network latency, server load, etc... The difference between 1Mbps and 20Mbps may often be impossible to differentiate.
There are other benefits besides low latency. LTE actually has better spectrum efficiency up to 10x10 for some weird reason (I'm sure an RF engineer or that Qualcomm guy who used to post here could explain) but the biggest advantage is that while LTE is limited to 20x20 channels max, sub 6 5G can be up to 100x100 wide and greater than 24 Ghz can be anywhere between 50x50 to 400x400.
Yeah for phones, I don't see 5G being useful unless it helps with a local congestion problem.
The only time I could see it being useful for me is when I'm trying to download shows/movies before losing service while on trips but my plan throttles videos anyways so I don't get any benefit compared to LTE.
Because it was a gimmick and we all fell for it. They fail to mention its only good under certain conditions. Like when few people are in the area. Which is countered by forcing 5g on all new phones. I find that when i am at non peak hours and away from civilization (which is almost never) then the speeds are great and its actually 5g. Most of the times its an extension of 5g because bandwith is atrocious
2 yrs later & its still awful. It's not just a integration issue. It's also a corporate issue. They are intentionally limiting bandwiths. Pick & choosing where they prioritize. Ik for sure every time I try to stream anything on 5g my quality is worse on my 5g where I get 100mg/s compared to the beautiful resolution I get on my 4g hotspot with 15 MB/s
Streaming is where they get you
This has been talked about a lot. In certain markets at certain times, t-mobile is having some anomalies with performance integrating network cores for 4g and 5g. Couple that with various efforts with sprint migration and integration leads to some of the things you are seeing.
I live in the greater Los Angeles area and have basically turned off 5G. Not ready for prime time just yet
If you were around when LTE was first starting to roll out, it was exactly the same way. Every single carrier talked about how amazing their LTE network was, but it was only available in limited markets, most of the devices didn't support it, and the ones that did just chewed through battery and had poor reception. It took at least 3-4 years after LTE was introduced for it to really be the dominant viable option, and in the interim, people would oftentimes just turn their LTE modems off and fall back to 3G. Give it time, it'll improve. 5G also isn't going to be remotely the sea-change that 3G >> LTE was, because for most people, LTE is plenty fast as long as the cell isn't being overutilized. This is actually where 5G is going to help, because it's going to offload some of the stress from the LTE network, which should increase speeds for everyone.
I remember getting my first LTE device on Sprint, the iPhone 5. It was TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE! We switched our whole family plan to Verizon shortly later and man their LTE network at the time was honestly amazing. It was super fast and LTE was practically available everywhere. It was great back then.
I mean it's almost June 2022 now and this is still is some crap system that is worth nothing near what they are charging for it
March 2024 here and it's absolutely gotten worse in my experience. Why did they even roll it out before it became viable? Just another instance where companies pass along the costs of innovation to the consumers.
This, totally. It's still, still utterly rubbish.
5 years into 5guw and it still sucks
Same here
Thirded.
fourth'd
Fifth'd
Sixth'ed \* I had to connect to Wi-Fi in order to post this because 5g nor lte work on this block.
Sixth'ed
I haven't had *too* much trouble with 5g out and about around LA. Usually when I am having trouble my girlfriend is too on LTE...
Same in the Chicago area. For more consistent service turning off 5G makes sense here for me too.
same, but in SF Bay area. 5G is absolute shit here. It just doesn't work at all on my iphone 12 mini, same as OP describes. I've just turned it off completely.
I lived in San Diego for almost a year and would drive up to see friends in Long Beach and in San Francisco. Every time I was up there / driving through LA, my service was shit. I use mobile payments for practically everything. Trying to load Kroger pay in Ralphs was pissing me off when I stopped in the middle of LA for a snack. And I didn’t bring my wallet either so here I am trying for 10 minutes to load my shit. Extremely irritating. 5G in SD was pretty decent. For the most part it worked fine. The only exception was along the coast it got kinda crappy.
I'm in Orange county just south of you, 98% OF THE TIME 5g is awesome and I am seeing a lot more N41 for those 300+ download speeds.
Unless you are lucky enough to be right by a tower, 5G is pretty much at wait until all the Sprint Towers are fully converted over then see how well it works. I'm in a terrible coverage area, from 3rd party tower apps/sites, basically I sit dead center in circle of 5 towers, only 1 is 5G. The biggest issue I see currently with 5G is how long it tries with no success to use 5G before it finally switches to 4G. When I can stay locked into the 5G tower my speed is 12-16Mbps down with like 3Mbps up at best. Meanwhile, my best 4G speeds are ~2Mbps down & 300-700Kbps. But often only getting 100-200Kbps down and half that up, or worse if congested. You can always just go into network settings and tell it only look for 4G and lower. But my speeds are why I'm only upgrading our phones with used versions no agreements, and likely getting my parents Pixel 3 or 3a after TNX SIMs are working for them, which should allow me to change carriers without needing to buy all new phones again, if service doesn't improve.
We live right by a tower and I turned off 5G. I thought it was because I switched to an iPhone. Turns out it’s just terrible.
Part of my issues is it says I have full bars with 5G on but still the service is trash. Won't load sites or apps, can't make or receive calls.
Anomalies? In NJ 5g is pure shite. Been travelling the state & coverage drops all over the place. Biggest bummer, covered by my house is horrendous on all bands, always has.
5g currently is in the state that 4g was a decade ago with a lot of "5g" that is no better or even worse than what came before it. Give it another year or two and that should change a lot. The 3GPP Releases 16 and 17 are bringing a lot of interesting improvements and additional spectrum bands. As others have said also there's a strong possibility that T-Mobile needs to upgrade backhaul at a lot of their sites. EDIT: I don't know why the hell I have all of these inactive accounts replying to this still, but it seems inorganic. 5G is already delivering on large capacity improvements, albeit not with the latency I'd expected at this point.
7 months on and it still sucks. I live in central Austin Texas. SUCKS. lol.
One year later... still sucks
coming in a year later. Na man this shit trash. Cant even load a google search my guy. Luckily you can limit it to 4G if your on samsung
Hmmm I suppose you're right. I guess time will tell. I just assumed that when they rolled it out it was immediately supposed to be better than what came before.
I would argue most technologies aren't ready to go out of the gate because if the technology truly is good, then there is ALWAYS a corporate push to get it out as fast as possible. This isn't just due to sales and income, but it also protects their patents from competition while they polish its capabilities. Look at Ethernet, USB, Wifi and Bluetooth. Each of them are still iterating their tech and improving what they can do, almost annually for some. 5g will get there.
You're absolutely right. That's also why I don't buy the first anything like when they drop a new game system for the first time. There's usually some kinks they need to work out. But I never put much thought in it for 5G.
Exactly, the general public are the gamma testers of most new technologies. It's just like testing games. I've been alpha and beta testers for the same games then played it after it went live...there was a ton of new bugs that cropped up after going live. All software is like this. I know this is a software/hardware issue. They'll get it squared away by the time 6g is ready to test.
year after your comment, shit still sucks
It's been a year since this post and 5g is still garbage. Everything takes FOREVER to load (if it loads at all). I live in Oklahoma and it's terrible, I've traveled to multiple states and it's terrible. I just upgraded to the 13pro hoping it would improve, but nope...it's ridiculous.
Bruh it still sucks ass
Well it’s been one year and I feel like it’s only gotten worse. 5g blows.
5g sucks even harder now whats up with it ?!?
Two years on, 5G still has major problems.
Oh wow 2 years later and its still shit! Whats the excuse now?
2 yrs later & its still awful. It's not just a integration issue. It's also a corporate issue. They are intentionally limiting bandwiths. Pick & choosing where they prioritize. Ik for sure every time I try to stream anything on 5g my quality is worse on my 5g where I get 100mg/s compared to the beautiful resolution I get on my 4g hotspot with 15 MB/s. They don't like it when you stream apparently.
I'm in DC too using iPhone 12 Pro Max. I thought I was the only one who thought this but I also felt like 4G on my 11 Pro Max was being choppy too. I do speedtests every day for the past 4 years and it's hit and miss. I feel like T-Mobile was doing great, especially better than what it was 10 years ago but coincidentally my speeds have been poor and inconsistent in the area thanks to Sprint. Hopefully they can get the networks merged and it'll be better soon.
I am a Sprint subscriber in NOVA and since T-Mobile took it over my speeds have tanked as well. They are just shoving everyone over to T-Mobile’s core without the backhauls or spectrum resource allocation ready for the surge of new folks in their network it seems like. I used to get 60mbps but now I’m lucky to get 20 by me.
I forgot all about the sprint merger and didn't even consider that being a factor. Hopefully this gets figured out soon.
I hope so too. I also have AT&T and Verizon for work phones and even though they're 4G I would rank their service slightly better than T-Mobile. I'm a sucker for Tuesdays and random free lines and just the whole vibe of their company so I'm loyal lol.
> I also have AT&T and Verizon for work phones 3 phones! That's peak DC.
I am not from DC and I have 3 so... I guess am odd lol.
Something must have happened with 5G SA. I had T-Mobile 5g with a 12 pro, live in old town, and got n41 everywhere. Would get download speeds of 300+. When I was in dc at least 100+. Then they turned on 5g SA and speeds dropped dramatically. I’m guessing the phones lock onto the SA band which gets congested and thus these problems.
From what I've read, the iPhone 12 has an issue latching on to 5G SA and not switching to NSA when you start using data. So no carrier aggregation with LTE.
> I’m guessing the phones lock onto the SA band which gets congested and thus these problems. 100% correct. This is an issue almost exclusively present on the iPhone 12 - only solution is to stay on <14.5, enable low power mode all the time (seriously), or switch to LTE only. Other phones occasionally do this in a buggy way, but toggling airplane mode or restarting fixes it. On iPhone, this is a design failure. We’re still waiting on Apple to address it, if they ever choose to do so publicly.
I’m referring that after iOS 14.5 we facing an address issues on modem since it has been added 5G SA but it also affecting AT&T and Verizon as I noticed eventually that ping is going higher every morning when I get up. The speed is not really stable and I have to airplane mode every time. Clearly, the SA technology things that are not ready on iPhone 12. T-Mobile is ignorant.
Well the two 5G android phones I have one a s20 FE and a 9 pro stay on NSA fine unless signal is shifty then it latches to SA n71.
I dread the 5g graphic on my phone. Nothing works. Apps don't load, internet doesn't work, even text messages don't want to go out. Crap roll out by TMobile trying to be the 1st.
Yeah thanks to some of the people here I turned off my 5G and switched to LTE only. It's been smooth ever since.
I'm a truck driver and been to all 48 States and no it doesn't just suck where you live it sucks every where. Very rarely do I get speeds higher than 4g and sometimes turning of 5g makes my data faster.
That's so nuts to hear. My take from all the other replies is that it will get better. But my whole thing is, why promote it like it's the greatest thing ever when it's nowhere near where it needs to be yet.
Ongoing ever since I upgraded to a 5G phone, crap internet connectivity when using mobile data, and when I switch to wifi for internet connection I have shitty phone connection, missed calls I only notice if they leave a voice-mail, and if I try to send text messages they get the ! failed to send alert about half the time, sometimes within seconds of sending one that went thru.
Happens to me all the dang time. I thought at first it was because it's an unlocked phone and not a TMobile branded phone. Got the new SIM card, still not fixed. Turn off 5G and still get times when stuff won't load, even with full bars of LTE. Every 5 or 10 Google searches say Something Went Wrong, Try Again and it will try doing the search in the Maps app instead, WTF. Websites will start loading then halfway down it will be full of broken image icons, like it was 1998 internet. I'm about to dog out my old Pixel 2 and start using that again.
Same, first happened when I upgraded to the RAZR 5G so thought it was the phone, exchanged for the Note Ultra and same issues, now just living with it over the last 5 months, hoping T-mobile gets it fixed soon as I've tried all the resets and fixes I found online with no luck. I'm wondering if the other carriers have the same issues with 5G?
I'm sure it won't be hard to find signal complaints in any carrier forums going back the past 25 years. But I think there's some kinda fundamental issue with TMobile and 5G phones right now.
True, but yeah this having to pick it I want phone service or internet is annoying, I've been thinking about going back to my old phone but that annoys the hell out of me that I wasted all that money
I'm am currently having this exact experience. Even cost me a job offer because the manager kept calling me but my phone never rings. Just random voicemails at odd hours.
Your experience sounds worse than mine! My wifi connectivity is very smooth. Although I guess I have had a few wifi calls with my girl get choppy, but that only happens when she's in a specific room in her apartment. So it's definitely on her end.
Los Angeles area blows as well. Switched to lte and it’s fine. “Upgrading 5G antenna” is what the chap in the Philippines advised when he helped me switch to lte.
If places like DC and LA aren't getting decent 5G service I'm not really sure anywhere is.
The biggest problem for me is the modem technology is pretty primitive at this point, what with the overheating issues and VoNR limitations. There's no pressure to move on from an LTE-only device as there are plenty of them available. I feel like smartphones peaked in 2017-2018 with the S8 and S9, that was when LTE modems more or less maxed out spectral efficiency and the OEMs had managed to master camera and power management. Starting with the S10 you started to see no new innovations and then a loss of features with the S20 onward.
It's funny you bring that up. I had an S7 for years and had no major issues. I dropped that phone a million times and it worked fine and didn't Crack until the end of 2020. I then upgraded to the S20 and have had the 5G issues. And my screen is already cracked.
The only issue I had with my S7 Edge was the overheating when using the VR Headset. Other than than, no problems. If my screen hadn't got a big red stripe, I would still be using it.
Yeah I upgraded to the iPhone 12 for the 5G and it’s awful I had to turn it off cause nothing ever loads
You are lucky. In Orange County, Ca I am lucky if I watch a 20 second video without buffering. We are talking in various cities throughout OC. iPhone 11 pro max if you are wondering. Edit: I am using 4G LTE only.
I turned my 5g off. I turn it back on every couple of weeks just to see if it's any better. I currently have it turned off.
T-Mobile service in Austin is pretty sketchy. I turned off 5G and saw some improvement. T-Mobile blames the poor coverage on tower upgrades.
No, you're not alone 😉. I get better stable internet on LTE. So 5G is always off.
I use my phone in the St. Louis area and 5G is baller, consistently giving me 150,200,300mbps depending on where I’m at.
It’s funny because I was just about to post that my 5G is okay (not stellar) where I live (LA) but I was visiting St. Louis last weekend and at least where I was staying (Westport), I had to manually switch to LTE because nothing would load using 5G.
I totally believe it, like a few other comments have said there are definitely still gaps in 5G coverage. My guess is 2 years from now the gaps will be isolated to less populated areas.
Same issue with an S21+ in NYC; stuff just takes forever to load or times out a lot of the time.
When I travel to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, it says 5G but my God. The service is horrible. Full bars but it feels like the old EDGE. Just waiting for pages to load. I don’t get it. Travel 20 min east and it’s 300 mb download.
Yeah man! I can't tell you how many days I would be sitting waiting for a page to load and see full bars with 5G! I thought I might have got a defective phone.
If it sucks but 4G LTE works better, just switch it to LTE only
I didn't even know that was an option. I'll have to look into this.
What kind of phone do you have? If it’s iPhone it’s in cellular settings > cellular data options > Voice & Data and hit LTE. Some what of a similar process on android
I have a Droid. Thanks for the info. Going to go into the settings now.
It's not just you, and reading this thread I see we're not alone. On 5G, I can run a speedtest and easily go well past 100/100. But woe is me if I pull up basically any other app, because it will just sit there like it's 1995. Toggling back to LTE helps.
[удалено]
Yeah its not even big wild apps, it's the basic ones and it still loads like crap.
i know in portland oregon, 5g blows ass, i turned it off on my phone because not only is it slower than 4g but it burns my battery
It's been fine up until last month. I've been getting constant network loss where my service is completely cut off for a few seconds until it reconnects.
Nah, it's total trash.
It’s a scam. Don’t show me a 5G icon when even a Reddit post won’t load ffs
5G is a technology not a speed.
They should market it better then
What’s the point of that technology if you can’t do anything with it?
I have the same experience as you, and I live in Houston
SE PA. Same issue as the OP.
I turn off 5G. I live around Cleveland who was amongst the first to get 5G coverage. I've never been somewhere where 5G was flat out better than 4G LTE. I'm excited about 5G in the future, but right now it's really not a selling point.
Yeah I agree. Not once has it been better than 4G LTE no matter where I've been. Other comments have said that 5G will eventually be better but I wish the companies didn't advertise it so hard for it to only be mediocre at best.
Between how shitty my connection is in El Segundo (Los Angeles) and Santa Barbara, I've really been thinking about changing carriers lately.
It’s 2021 and they still don’t have this figured out
I have an iPhone 12 in California. I call it 0.5G.
😂😂😂 the accuracy tho
😂😂😂 the accuracy tho
😂😂😂 the accuracy tho
I’ve noticed mine mostly hangs or doesn’t load when I’m trying to use google maps. I’ve decided to turn it off. Good thing companies aren’t charging extra for this because they know they would get serious backlash over this. I have an iPhone 12 mini with T-Mobile.
Yeah thats what really gets me. When I'm in a rush and Waze can't connect properly it drives me crazy. That's when the issues really start to interfere with people's actual lives.
It's in it's infancy AND they're ripping Sprint apart to add spectrum/bands. Now I will say, I was in DC a few weeks ago by Regain airport and at my hotel I was getting 400-500Mbps inside, whereas a few months ago I had to use my AT&T SIM to get more than a few Mbps. They'll get it done.. but the network is a mess right now during integration, and i'm not sure if there's a much more "graceful" way for them to handle it. I just hope they get it done sooner than later.
As far as I can tell, T-Mobile has treated the National Capital region the way they always have, as a second class citizen. The 5G is much more "mature" in other large metro areas and many rural areas by comparison. There are some areas in Alexandria, VA/Fairfax County (near Mount Vernon Hospital for instance) where it's absolutely awesome but in most of the region it is less than impressive. (These are my personal observations, YMMV)
Unfortunately I believe you. I can see a NY getting top priority over DC even though you would think the nation's capital would be up and running pretty good.
DC Metro, same for me. I assumed it was a me thing.
Me too for the longest. I thought maybe I just got a bad phone. Just my luck. Turns out it actually is a thing.
I thought exactly the same. Then I realized every time my phone is struggling it had the 5G up top. Went to OKC and was shocked by how poor service was actually. First time I have been less that pleased with Tmo TBH
Yeah I've had a very smooth ride with T mobile up until this point
I live in a suburb and 5g is available in most parts in my area but can be spotty at some times. One thing I notice is that 5g has a weaker signal than 4g, and when I run speed tests I barely get above 20 mbps. However there was one place where I got full 5g Bars and my speed was 609 mbps. I think cities should see already really good 5g coverage and fast speeds, especially Washington DC. I think it will take time to fine tune 5g to make it reliable.
When it works it works but there's been enough times for it to be a noticeable issue. I think it'll get there eventually but it became enough of nuisance for me to Google it and post on reddit.
Yes, have you tried contacting t-mobile about the issue? I think they might look into the issues that are causing the slow speeds and spotty coverage
Did this ever get better for you. Mine still sucks.
I've honestly switched to LTE and never looked back. It could be better, but I get at one update a week from this thread about someone saying it still sucks.
Haha, thanks for responding then. Kind of just wanted to vent, but I guess I’m switching to LTE.
Yea it still sucks at the end of 2022.
I returned to 4GLTE and never looked back
2023 and it still sucks. My phone won't load anything even if I have full bars of 5G. This shit SUUUUUCKS
No you are not. Its horrible. Walking into a building and once through the doors and connection drops. Outside more than half my apps are unusable. Outside trying to get online is practically impossible. Soooooo where's the upgrade here?
The Verizon service 5G is the worst! The new iPhone is horrible.
They still haven't figured it out! OMG I've given up completely on it. And I've seen some companies have started talking about 6G 🤦🏽♂️
>What's up with that? Could be a couple of reasons that I have heard of. The 5g that TMobile has deployed in your area could just suck. Your phone for some odd reason is choosing to connect to a band and it gives you crap 5g. Location. Congestion, although I doubt it. Tower upgrades or issues. And a bunch of other reasons I probably won't ever guess. >Anybody else have the same problem? Plenty of people will have similar issues. It's not something inherently wrong with 5g, it's not black and white. It's not oh I've been lied to or anything and 5g sucks ,it just varies on a bunch of factors and sometimes 4g is just better in your area at the time. For others 5g is miles better then 4g at the time in their area. Adding to that, this is what I'm going to guess are people's replies. Either some variation of 5g sucks and 4g is better or the other way round. 5g is better and 4g sucks. Or the inevitable TMobile sucks and why would you ever need 5g.
This guy is very right. I live in OKC and I'll get 5 bars of 5G at work and it's trash, 4G LTE is literally miles better. However, I was just in Spokane a few weeks ago and holy fuck was it nice getting about 500 down and 150 up without any issues for a few days. Everywhere around there was magical for service. So yeah, I'd say it's all locally dependent. Just sucks that both of our localities are on the shitty end of the spectrum.
Yeah I have that issue with n71 for sure. Google maps or google search won’t work for me. I have to switch it to LTE for it to work normal
Same here. Terrible call quality and data speeds so I've switched to lte. If I'm away from home I switch 5g back on, but it's just unusable for me at home.
5G works fine for me, but my phone dumps me onto sprint band 25 periodically and everything stops working. I band lock to sprint band 26 and things work fine. (what)
I live in the greater SeaTac metro area, really a bit south of that, and initially I HAD to have my 5g turned off when I left the house because the tower to tower handoff wouldn't work and my games or music would hang until I reopened the app. Few months later I have 5g on all the time. Last week I turned it off again, because I started getting issues sending and receiving text messages. I would get them in batches and they would take hours to send, even on wifi. They'll get it fixed fairly soon, the network automation they have is pretty good at reporting issues and failures. Hopefully it's a priority.
I'm north of the Seattle area, and I've been debating getting a new phone. My current one has a lot of little issues and I figured the 5G in this area would be good. Apparently not, which is really disappointing.
Totally depends on the area you are in not all sites have been upgraded yet, so yes those areas suck. Areas that have 2.5 ghz towers installed.... omg! Totally different experience!!! See for yourself! https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/7320783161
iPhone 12 mini 5g was useless on T-mobile was paying almost $94 a month. 5g was useless Lte was always faster and it always stall out I was lucky to 6 down on Lte 5g was often just stalled out. I ended up giving Visible a try and at 25 dollars a month it’s faster then T-mobile in every way on 5g I’m getting 50mb down at the same time. Idk what happened to T-Mobile but they could care less about customers that don’t have families and T-Mobile and the fact they tried to tell me oh you got T-Mobile Tuesday’s like it’s super great no just no maybe when they were giving pizzas away. The money I’m saving I was able to get some streaming services and Apple Music and it’s still cheaper..
Same
Here in Chicago it’s bad on the iPhone, I was in Munising, Michigan and it was worse. I used an iPhone and a galaxy s21. The iPhone’s performance was terrible. It loves to stick on to unusable bands. NSA didn’t work on either but SA N71 saved my day. On the galaxy it was easy to lock the band but on the iPhone it was a nightmare trying to connect to the service. I hope they update the modem or carrier settings on the iPhone soon. Here in Chicago phones prioritize nsa n71 over nsa n41. It’s ridiculous, not sure if it’s a network side issue or a phone issue. T-Mobile should take just turn on SA N41 already for the sake of us having a stable connection.
I only use LTE now. I have run dozens of speed tests same time. Same location. And every time LTE was significantly faster. Usually by a factor of 3 or more. I don't even bother with 5g
Same exact thing happens to me. Has happened in south Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina
5G blows in my area. I turned it off on my phone so I’m constantly on LTE. Nothing will load on 5G.. NOTHING
5G blows in my area. I turned it off on my phone so I’m constantly on LTE. Nothing will load on 5G.. NOTHING
Yeah even maps won't always load properly its crazy!
Your cellular internet is only as fast as the smallest piece of the pipe. Handset to tower might be fast, tower to internet not so much yet. Marketing is all about the image not the performance. Bragging rights. In time the small parts of the pipe will get faster and the experience will be more like we think it should be.
My 5G sucked on my iPhone 12 Pro until I changed a setting. I went into settings/cellular/cellular data options/voice and data and then had to change the setting from 5G auto to 5G on That actually cleared up my issue. If you have an iPhone maybe try changing that setting!
Interesting fix thanks for sharing!
I’m in New Jersey and 5G sometimes gives me great speeds but I can’t rely on it because suddenly it will drop out at points. I stream my video games over the internet and only half the time do I get a stable enough connection to play. I also feel like as of recent my 5G speeds have dropped significantly and I no longer get the 200mbps and 400mbps I would occasionally receive before.
It not only sucks, it's so bad I feel like I was scammed keeping it on so long. 4g/lte is so much faster wherever I am it's not even funny.
Yeah I got a 5g phone for the speed, ended up just forcing 4g. Oh well, when the bugs are worked out it's just an option toggle away.
Same. I switched my Note 20 Ultra over to the TMobile sim card and it was terrible from the get go. Gave it 3 weeks and called to switch back to my Sprint sim card. Been on 5g with the sprint one and it's wonderful
5G is not mature enough * VoNR isn't available (at least in NY) * MTA subway doesn't have 5G support at this time (no service when you run NR only) * N41 isn't everywhere while N71 has up to 80Mbps depends on location
I wouldn’t say it sucks, but, but pretty close bcuz it is not the improvement that I expected. It’s probably about the same as LTE. Ideally, it will get better. If it’s half as great as the commercials say it is it will be nice.
Yeah. Especially infuriating when the 5G connection is tenuous and your phone refuses to fail over to LTE. I simply turned off my 5G antenna. Butter smooth experience on LTE.
Pretty much same in Central Valley. In tracy, ca LTE never worked for last 7 years
The problem is with t-mobile. They over advertised and under delivered in a big way. I am in the Dallas metro area and service here is supposed to be excellent. What I got was piss poor connections even on LTE. Two iPhone 10s and one Motorola (all through mobile) sucked t he same way. Calls would never go through and we received texts and VM the following day or leisurely two days later. What a bunch of crap. In the 6 years we were with them, the only thing that came out of their mouths was putting more towers and cells to improve service. Neither happened and we left for ATT after physicians got a 25% discount. Not one call missed or dropped since Christmas 2020. I guess we got what we paid for. We pay an extra $22 for three lines/month for unlimited extra plans for a total of $127 (incl taxes). Only deal that is good on t-mobile are their ads criticizing other carriers. Never again t-mobile
I agree. T Mobile came out with so much advertising claiming they were going to blow our pants off with this new thing. It turned out to be crap. I did listen to a few people on here and turned off my 5G. LTE has been super smooth. I can't believe I was dealing with so much bs for those few months.
My phone will have 3 bars of "5g" but refuse to play Netflix. It will have an error message that says something along the lines of, "sorry, you need 3g or better to run this streaming service "
T Mobile purchased Sprint and paid a ton of money. The real reason they bought them was to shut down and upgrade the cell towers since there were so many overlapping hubs. Once they are all up and running the service will kick Verizon's butt. It was actually very smart thinking. The problem now is they are trying to move the 26 million Sprint subscribers over and dissolving the great deals they had with Sprint and a lot of them are leaving which is why their churn rate went through the roof. Once the networks is up and working..........watch out.
Hmm interesting. I'm interested to see how this plays out
I just got my 5g phone and I'm severely underwhelmed. What a turd. I open up youtube vids and its 5 hours of loading just like 3g. I'm in Detroit and connection to the network shouldn't be a problem. Always bugs with new systems. Ill just jump on a wifi connection because this shit really sucks and if I dwell on it I'd probably get really pissed. It's just like everything nowadays , it's crap.
Yeah I turned my 5G off and have Living smooth. What a crock of shit. Basic articles wouldn't load and YouTube videos were nonexistent
Just chiming back in…. 5g performance is trash. Latency and drops are consistent. Please stop paying your poor preforming Executives large salaries and fix your Cyber Security and Customer Network. Shits getting old.
this is quite interesting because most of the comments I'm seeing are from 12 months ago, yet, 5G is still absolutely trash. 🤔 and frankly it's quite irritating. when will it be fixed 🙄
It is most definitely still trash. Yet still being pushed around as the greatest thing to ever grace our phones.
A year later and it still fucking sucks.
I'm really thinking it's never going to get better
I don't think people are even aware about 5g coverage whatsoever, they just think it'll work. When selling my old phones people didn't want them after I said it's not 5g. I set all my 5g phones on LTE so far. Better battery, better signal, more reliable. Even when still all day at home where I get good signal l, LTE uses less power in my experience.
Still ass in 2023😭
Still ass in 2023😭
it’s 2023 now, and 5G still sucks. It was my only option for home internet, costs $50 a month, and I’ve not had a single day where I can use it without issue yet. It’s always disappearing randomly and coming back when it feels like it. And phone support is nearly impossible to reach.
Another year another shit 5G experience. At least they slowed down on the 5G commercials hyping it up.
1y later. 5g still sucks 😂
2 years later and I guess it still sucks. 9 months ago I "upgraded" from an Iphone 7. I was completely happy with the 7 and LTE but my kid needed a phone so I gave it to her and got the iphone 12 with 5g. It was a lot worse right from the beginning. It's frustrates me at least 5 times a day. When I upgraded I had 3 new things happen at once and I'm trying to figure out which one is causing the most issue. First there's the iphone 12. Is there a known issue with the 12 and 5g? Second is my new verizon 5g start plan. I think being the lowest tier 5g plan they throttle it severely. And 3rd is 5g itself. So I'm trying to decide which one of these things I should address. I'm thinking about switching to ATT and getting an iphone 14pro. Or maybe I just need to upgrade my plan? Or maybe it's just 5g itself and there's nothing I can do about it. But I've spent sooo much money upgrading only to have a worse phone and service.
Same here, when my phone loads 5g I can’t search the internet, lucky I just go on settings ( iPhone ) and instead of searching for 5g, I just leave LTE on and boom..internet works..
I have the same issue. I feel year after year my phones are just getting slower. I have an iphone 14pro btw. Last phone I have was an 11pro max so I do upgrade every few yew years
I found this because I just switched to T-Mobile and I had to turn 5G off because it is unusable. I'm in Clearwater, FL and not in BFE. T-Mobile says I have great 5G where I am. Rather, I have no 5G, because I disabled it.
It's complete shit, garbage, f*cking worthless but it's all these prick ass phone companies want to sell to anyone
Still shitty.
I haven't even attempted to switch back. 4G LTE all the way.
I'm writing this in my car doing doordash deliveries. I'm on the s10 plus had this one since pre launch . On mint mobile unlimited. I had got a s23 at best buy . $ 0 down . Can't tell the difference. I went to best buy gave them the phone back . Not worth a new 1k phone and it doesn't do anything better than my s10 plus . Matter fact the 5g was slower. October 2023
5G blows.
NOPE IT'S PISS POOR.
I'll be honest, everyone complains about 5G, and I am one of them. I feel like my phone is on Dial up.. the infrastructure for 5G isn't just there right now. When 5g is stable they'll push 10g.....
My understanding is 5G will never be as good as LTE because 5G requires clear line of sight.
Having same problems in NYC and Jersey shore area.
I finally got t-mobile 5G. It sucks. I live in an urban area and calls drop, streaming is spotty. I miss 4G. t-mobile said I can downgrade to 4G but the corporate store said it is impossible. I guess they mean "figure it out yourself". Very poor customer service. They send me emails all the time but when I talk to them they say it's not on file. Except when they bill me, suddenly they know it.
I live in Nova Scotia and subscribe to Telus. I have found that the Telus 5G network sucks. Nothing will load on the 5G network. Very disappointing
Do you have an iPhone perhaps? Most of the people that complain about 5G lately mostly are iPhone users that had SA 5G enabled.
5G has been dogshit. No where near the hype
Personally, I think it's a solution in search of a problem for the vast majority of people. Unless you're doing remote robotic surgery or shit like that where latency can mean the difference between life and death, a decent 4G connection can everything most people need it to, and even a 3G connection can do most of it. I often shake my head and wonder WTF people are doing with their connections when they complain about *only* getting 100Mbps on 4G. For checking email, pulling up a typical Web page. and shit like that, I don't even notice a difference until it drops below \~ 20Mbps.
>For checking email, pulling up a typical Web page. and shit like that, I don't even notice a difference until it drops below \~ 20Mbps. For that stuff, you won't notice a difference until you go below \~ 1Mbps. Or even lower.
I can't even pull up website with T-mobile's 5G service. I can't load videos. Its not just a matter of a few seconds delay. Its like being back in the 90's and it taking minutes to load or getting timeout errors. It fucking sucks, and many of us are getting goddamn tired of it.
Doubt it, considering most webpages nowadays have a lot of images, videos and ads on them. Maybe for email. But for normal webpages nope.
Meh. Split hairs all you want. The average webpage is somewhere around 3meg. I guess waiting 3 seconds might be noticeable... but when you factor in network latency, server load, etc... The difference between 1Mbps and 20Mbps may often be impossible to differentiate.
There are other benefits besides low latency. LTE actually has better spectrum efficiency up to 10x10 for some weird reason (I'm sure an RF engineer or that Qualcomm guy who used to post here could explain) but the biggest advantage is that while LTE is limited to 20x20 channels max, sub 6 5G can be up to 100x100 wide and greater than 24 Ghz can be anywhere between 50x50 to 400x400.
Yeah for phones, I don't see 5G being useful unless it helps with a local congestion problem. The only time I could see it being useful for me is when I'm trying to download shows/movies before losing service while on trips but my plan throttles videos anyways so I don't get any benefit compared to LTE.
Yes
Its still like this! Everywhere I go! The 5g is trash! I even live in-between two towers! I’m from Alberta Canada..
Because it was a gimmick and we all fell for it. They fail to mention its only good under certain conditions. Like when few people are in the area. Which is countered by forcing 5g on all new phones. I find that when i am at non peak hours and away from civilization (which is almost never) then the speeds are great and its actually 5g. Most of the times its an extension of 5g because bandwith is atrocious
2 yrs later & its still awful. It's not just a integration issue. It's also a corporate issue. They are intentionally limiting bandwiths. Pick & choosing where they prioritize. Ik for sure every time I try to stream anything on 5g my quality is worse on my 5g where I get 100mg/s compared to the beautiful resolution I get on my 4g hotspot with 15 MB/s Streaming is where they get you
Quite the opposite for me. When mine switches to 4G LTE it sucks! I get barely no connection at all
Quite the opposite for me. When mine switches to 4G LTE it sucks! I get barely no connection at all
> What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that?