Covering All the Gs with RCR Wireless News Editor Peter Cohen – TMO Daily Observations 2022-10-05
Earlier this week, JP Morgan’s Samik Chatterjee said that 5G was one of the biggest drivers for iPhone upgrades this season. That started Ken on a slew of questions he hoped RCR Wireless News Editor Peter Cohen (@petercohenrcr) might be able to answer. Predictably, it led to more questions.
It’s been my understanding that high band 5G implementation up to this point in time has been very slow. The 5G high band coverage is supposed to offer the fastest speeds but coverage and penetration into buildings and structures is poorer. It was estimated that cell providers would need cell coverage on every city block in order to achieve useful high band coverage. This also makes rural 5G high band coverage almost impossible.
As a result of poor high band coverage, 5G low and medium band implementation is what has been prioritized by the providers as existing towers / sites can be used, coverage for mid band is not as good a low band but speeds are only marginally better with 5G low band over 4G. 5G mid band is a compromise providing some what higher speed but again, coverage issues start to come into play.
Bottom line is the 5G high band is costly for the providers to implement and zoning and municipal fees for using things like street light poles comes into play making high band 5G a political issue as well. Surprised that Peter Cohen never really got into this as it is the largest road block with getting true implementation of 5G coverage.
This is the single best overall description of 3G, 4G, and 5G I’ve heard anywhere. I can read the technicals, and they sound cool, but THIS tells me why I should care. Serious props to Peter for this, and serious props to Ken for getting Peter on the ‘cast!