T-Mobile Says It Will Launch Nationwide 5G Network In Three Years (cnet.com)

T-Mobile announced today its plans for launching a "true" nationwide LTE beginning in 2019, with a complete rollout by 2020. From a report: The nation's third-largest carrier on Tuesday unveiled plans to build out its next-generation wireless network using the radio airwaves it just purchased in a government auction. The focus for its 5G network isn't necessarily speed, but instead broader coverage across the country. It's a surprising move given those airwaves operate on a lower band, which is great for covering long distances but won't give you tremendous speeds. The move goes against the conventional thinking about 5G, which has spurred excitement because of its ability to give you a seemingly supersonic connection to the network. Instead, T-Mobile is stressing a better signal everywhere and the ability to manage multiple devices beyond the phone.

Comments

Re:Confused

[SeaFox]

distance, bandwidth, pick one. Longer wavelength has a lower shannon limit, so less speed.

Uh, yeah. We know that. The point is the network will be operating in an area of spectrum that is better for penetration through buildings and other obsticles, but doesn't allow faster speeds. This is intentional. Yet somehow this is seen as "surprising".

To use a car analogy. it's like me saying I want to buy a car that's easy to park and gets really high mileage for my commute, then somehow it's "surprising" that I bought Honda Fit instead of a Ford Mustang.

I think this is more a case of bad editing in the submission. Because T-Mobile's move is surprising considering it "goes against the conventional thinking about 5G", which is the following sentence in the summary. Looks like someone meant to stick the adjective surprising there where the use of "move" as a noun appears a second time.

T-Mobile Customer 12 Years

[IonOtter]

I've been a customer for 12 years, and I work for their primary competitor. Even with my employee discount, my employer can't coax me over.

But lemme tell you...

Getting 5 miles out of any major metropolitan area, and seeing that little 4G icon vanish? It's annoying. Getting 10 miles outside of an MMA, and seeing no bars at all? It's frustrating.

Being 100 miles into the sticks on a camping trip, and everyone using the competitor network has 5 bars, 4G and is streaming music to the bluetooth speaker?

Yeah. Those are the times I'm tempted to turn to the Dark Side.