arrived almost two years after Verizon started
UROOLQJRXW/7(
That gave carriers time to work out the early
hiccups in their networks. 5G in the US will be a
mix of low, middle, and high bands, with some
channels sharing spectrum with 4G. Qualcomm
makes the only 5G chipsets that carriers trust at
the moment. Although there are some early 5G
SKRQHVRXWWKHUHULJKWQRZ4XDOFRPP¶V¿UVW
generation chipsets haven’t been able to support
all of the forms of 5G that are coming.
That will change next year. I expect Qualcomm’s
2020 modems to be able to handle all four
carriers’ various 5G networks, and Apple has
PDGHDPXOWL\HDUGHDOZLWK4XDOFRPPWRXVHLWV
modems starting in 2020 devices.
Apple is also waiting for better coverage. At the
moment, AT&T and Verizon have very little 5G
FRYHUDJH%XWE\ODWHUQH[W\HDU70RELOH
promises to cover more than 200 million people
with some sort of 5G signal, and AT&T and
Verizon will be working on “nationwide” 5G
networks using shared spectrum with 4G.
For now, 4G is good enough. Canadian 4G
networks, for example, are faster than Sprint’s
¿UVWJHQHUDWLRQ*QHWZRUNKHUHLQWKH86*
networks will continue to expand and speed up
over the next few years, and nobody’s really come
up with a killer app for extreme 5G speeds yet.
Apple will enjoy sitting back and letting Android
XVHUV¿JXUHRXWZKDW*LVIRUEHIRUHVZRRSLQJ
in with what it believes will be widely loved,
popular APIs and apps.
S
a
s
c
h
a
S
e
g
a
n
@saschasegan
