So You Wanna Get 5G?

Almost nobody in Washington knows this, but there’s a little-known spot in front of Union Station where you can get some of the fastest mobile internet access in the world. It’s a glimpse of the future that comes with few catches. You almost certainly don’t own a phone that can use it. It’s only accessible outdoors. And if you move too far out of range, you’re dumped unceremoniously back into present day.

If you’ve seen any wireless commercials lately, or even just watched the recent Super Bowl, you know the hottest mobile communication technology is “5G,” the next-generation network that will eventually power our smartphones and other connected devices. T-Mobile’s Super Bowl ad boasted a network that works from your kitchen table to the nightclub, while Verizon touted its potential to help first responders. Phone companies promise a thrilling new world of faster mobile entertainment, and they’re already stocking 5G phones in their stores.

“2019 was the year of the promise of 5G, and 2020 is the year when we are beginning to deliver on it,” Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics, told me.

That all sounds great. But can Americans actually get it?

TV commercials for 5G leave out some important caveats. The rollout of high-speed 5G hinges on a mix of domestic and global telecommunications policies, many of which still need to be resolved. U.S. carriers need larger swaths of airwaves to transmit all that data, and new technology to make the most of their existing bandwidth. The highest 5G speeds will also require far more transmitters—think small antennas on every city block, not occasional towers. And on the global stage, 5G standards are still being hashed out by the world’s economic powers.

Those commercials also don’t explain that not all 5G is created equal. The network is really a confluence of different technologies running on different radio frequencies, and the speed of the network differs greatly as a result. So, while any 5G network is expected to be faster than what consumers can tap into today, exactly how much faster might depend on where you live.

To find out just how that rollout is really going, I decided to go on a 5G tour of Washington, D.C. And my hunt for hands-on experience with the highest-speed 5G brought me, eventually, to a red-brick walkway in front of the main Amtrak station.

Like most modern travelers, if I were here to catch a train, my trip would surely involve gazing at a screen. That’s why a Verizon employee and I are now downloading a 22-minute episode of The Office on Netflix. As she taps her 5G phone—a $1,300 handset that is one of the few 5G-compatible phones on the market—I do the same on my current iPhone, which uses Verizon’s current state-of-the-art 4G LTE network. Within seconds, less than 10 to be precise, the 5G network delivers the show to her phone. My phone, by comparison, has barely registered what I’m asking it to do. Nearly three minutes later, the download is still not done.

Fast entertainment downloads are perhaps the most common example phone companies provide for how average consumers will first benefit from 5G technology, but the long-term promise of the network is much bigger. Proponents sketch out a whole new kind of network, one where mobile entertainment and immersive experiences are enjoyed with lightning speed and almost no “latency,” the term for those annoying delays when you’re waiting on your phone to access a website or stream an online video.

As for nonentertainment uses, 5G is expected to drive a host of transformations. It will facilitate real-time communications between driverless cars, for example, and revolutionize telemedicine to allow remote, robotic surgery. It also allows new kinds of logistical operations for companies to automate their machinery and factories with no room for error or delay.

But this high-speed network still has some limitations, as I found out firsthand.

For starters, the Verizon employee and I are standing outside on a sidewalk in the winter because the technology that powers Verizon’s Ultra Wideband network, as it’s called, is not yet available inside the station itself. And unlike a traditional cellphone signal, it cannot penetrate walls. The network only extends a short distance from each cell site, so we first had to find the right spot where the network kicks in, and then couldn’t venture too far. To achieve these ultra-fast 5G speeds in an urban environment, I am told, you must be within the sight line of a small cell site, which Verizon has placed in select densely populated places around Washington. (We tested another one outside the Hart Senate Office building, which was also remarkably fast.)

This type of 5G is still a rare species out in the wild. And if your day-to-day life exists beyond an urban corridor, it’s likely to remain that way for some time. It must be built out block by block, street by street, city by city. It is a tedious and, ultimately, expensive undertaking that major mobile carriers in the U.S. began in earnest last year. And the initial uses that will allow carriers to recoup their hefty investments are largely confined to commercial environments, such as factories, stadiums or hospitals.

“I think it would be disingenuous for any carrier to say that you’re going to have broad, ubiquitous, nationwide 5G+ any time in the next few years,” said Chris Sambar, executive vice president of AT&T’s Technology Operations. “I think that would be really aggressive for any carrier to say that in earnest.”

So what really comes next?

When it comes to high-speed 5G rollout, Washington is quite high on the list—Verizon counts it among the 31 cities with locations receiving its fastest form of 5G, Ultra Wideband. The company expects to double that number and expand its in-city networks this year. AT&T currently runs its “5G+” network, its fastest form of 5G, in select spots around 35 cities, with more expected to come online throughout the year. (Washington, D.C., is not yet one of them.)

5G? 5G Ultra Wideband? 5G+? If all the terminology sounds fuzzy, that’s because “5G” isn’t really a single thing. Already, AT&T and T-Mobile boast widespread networks running on the new 5G standards, capable of reaching millions of American consumers. The difference, and it’s a big one, is that these initial 5G networks won’t offer anywhere near the same high speeds or low latency that the companies promise is eventually coming. Verizon, for its part, is opting to turn on its highest-speed 5G in select areas and hold off on a nationwide 5G rollout until technology allows its 4G and 5G networks to work side by side without interference. “We want 5G to be better than our 4G,” said Heidi Hemmer, vice president of technology at Verizon.

T-Mobile says its nationwide 5G network is 20 percent faster on average than its 4G network, though that varies depending on the geographic area, according to Mark McDiarmid, T-Mobile’s senior vice president of radio network engineering and development. The installation of faster technology will get a boost from the company’s acquisition of rival Sprint, which holds coveted mid-band spectrum, McDiarmid said. A federal judge recently approved the deal despite opposition from state attorneys general.

“We’re trying to set expectations very modestly because we don’t want to overhype the technology when it’s still emerging,” McDiarmid told me in an interview.

In the nation’s capital, there’s certainly hype. Lobbyists representing the breadth of the telecom industry, from mobile carriers to chipmakers to device manufacturers, have been touting the technology’s potential. Those efforts come as policymakers across the government consider ways to speed up deployment of 5G, and give American and European companies a boost over their Chinese rivals.

The hype extends to the street level. At T-Mobile stores, the company’s nationwide 5G network is advertised on the front door, but would-be early adopters have limited choices. A store I popped into last month had only two 5G-compatible phones, a OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren and the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G, the latter of which was not yet running on the 5G network. (A speed test available through Google showed faster download speeds on the 4G device.) Verizon Wireless locations across the city have prominent displays showcasing a half-dozen 5G-compatible devices, though all of the ones I encountered were still running on the company’s 4G LTE network.

It turns out just 4 percent of network connections in North America will tap into any level of 5G network this year, according to GSMA Intelligence, the research arm of a trade group representing global network providers, chipmakers and device manufacturers. That number is projected to climb as the network expands and new 5G-compatible devices come to market. In 2025, 5G will account for 51 percent of network connections in North America, GSMA Intelligence predicts.

The industry is confident it’s at an inflection point. “That hype-versus-reality discussion has almost played out already,” said Tim Hatt, head of research for GSMA Intelligence. “Now is the case of real commercial deployments and real people using it. I think 2020 will be a year of major rollouts in the U.S. and, indeed, adoption.”

Again, there are caveats. It won’t be economically feasible to build the highest-speed 5G network everywhere, certainly not in the near term. Densely populated areas such as major shopping centers, sports stadiums, university campuses and airports will come first. And much like past technological and telecommunications upgrades, exurban and, especially, rural communities will likely be the last to see the benefits.

My other encounter with high-speed 5G brought me face-to-face with Batman, or at least an augmented-reality version of him. While peering at a smartphone, the Caped Crusader appears crouched on the floor of AT&T’s fifth-floor event space in an office building just blocks from Union Station. With the flick of a finger, a company engineer moves Batman about the room as the fictional Gotham City is superimposed on the windows behind him, replacing the late-morning view of New Jersey Avenue North West.

This superhero, because of the technology that powers him, is inhibited. If I were to leave the room or hop in the elevator, the high-frequency millimeter waves that allow him to appear so real and responsive on the smartphone screen would drop.

To better understand the technology behind 5G, Sambar at AT&T broke it down for me in culinary terms. Imagine 5G is a three-tiered cake, he said, calling on a popular metaphor within the industry. The lowest tier is the widest and can serve the most people, but it’s not as fast or low on lag. Its crucial advantage, however, is its ability to transmit data over long distances. This low-band 5G is the nationwide service that AT&T and T-Mobile have unfurled already to have a claim on the territory.

As you move up the cake, each tier serves fewer people, but it’s faster, with fewer delays. The middle tier, which consists of 5G running on something called mid-band spectrum, is faster and can still cover a reasonable distance. Sprint is the only major carrier currently using mid-band spectrum to provide 5G, currently in nine cities. Otherwise, mid-band spectrum is not yet widely used for 5G in the U.S., though the FCC’s Republican chairman is proposing to make a new slice of it available to industry.

The highest tier, known in the industry as millimeter wave, is the most potent but travels very short distances and therefore serves the fewest people.

This is the kind of 5G that’s gotten much of the hype. Once installed, it promises to keep phones and other smart objects in constant communication, potentially connecting driverless cars with city infrastructure, or creating immersive augmented-reality experiences like AT&T’s Batman game. Its proponents say 5G has the potential to usher in an era of still unforeseen products and services, the way smartphones and tablets gave rise to whole industries built around on-the-go apps like Uber and Waze.

But the companies have to get the networks running first.

“The network rollout is the key underpinning factor for any take up,” Hatt at GSMA Intelligence told me. “So that clearly has to be in place to allow consumer adoption to happen.”

For now, consumers can expect spots like the one outside Union Station to keep cropping up, invisibly. Consumers will start to buy 5G-enabled phones when it’s time for their next upgrade. And our collective march into the future of telecommunications will plod forward, with a bit of lag to overcome.