My daily trek home from midtown Manhattan to the west side of the Hudson River weaves through the heart of one 5G’s beachheads in New York City. That initial test revealed that 5G is still impressive … if not life-altering or consistent. In my time testing 5G around New York - primarily with a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ on AT&T’s network - my experience was almost entirely with sub-6, as your first dabbles with 5G will be, too. They act as a series of high-speed islands you need to seek out and find reason to stand in. Millimeter wave, which packs almost all of 5G’s significant punch, is much more like Wi-Fi than the all-encompassing “mobile” networks we’re accustomed to. When I booted up my 5G phone, I excitedly benchmarked its speed, downloaded a few large files … then went about my day as faster speeds hummed imperceptibly in the background. In 2020, 5G is pushing unprecedented speed, so the cart is leading the horse. When 3G and 4G rolled out, they were a revelation because they offered access to something cable connections had created years before: an internet built for broadband. But it comes with significant downsides: these waves don’t travel far, and they are easily blocked by walls, buses and trees and for now, they’re only pumped out of little black antennas on top of streetlights in a handful of cities across the country. Utilizing extremely high-frequency airwaves never widely used by mobile devices before, it delivers blistering speeds of 1,000 megabits per second or higher. The other half, often called “millimeter wave,” is the sexy bit.
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