After years of hype, 5G making progress in the US

AT&T announced that it had achieved nationwide coverage for its 5G network, joining T-Mobile, who reached that important goal Dec 2019. AT&T announced about a month ago that they have turned on a technology called DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing), which allows 4G and 5G phones to use the same frequencies. Practically speaking, that means AT&T can use some of its huge range of 4G coverage to also carry 5G signals, which can lead to both better coverage and faster download speeds. T-Mobile, for its part, is moving aggressively towards deploying what’s called 5G SA (Standalone) Mode. Basically, this means all aspects of the network—both the wireless connection to the cell tower and the internal “core” network that carries the data to and from various websites – are optimized for 5G. 

The bottom line is that we are much closer to a good quality 5G experience in the US than we’ve ever been. After years of hype around the subject, it’s nice to see some of the early promises start to come to life. Plus, the good news about wireless network enhancements is that many of them will quietly improve over time, which will bring better performance to the 5G phones you can buy today or in the near future without you having to do anything.