PC World - USA (2020-01)

124 PCWorld JANUARY 2020

HERE’S HOW WHEN TO UPGRADE TO A 5G PHONE

to clear the final FCC

and judicial hurdles,

but it does have a 5G

presence in a few

cities:

• Atlanta, GA


• Chicago, IL


• Dallas, TX


• Houston, TX


• Kansas City, KS


• Los Angeles, CA


• New York, NY


• Phoenix, AZ


• Washington, D.C.
  Sprint is focusing
  more on continuous
  coverage rather than
  multi-gig speeds,
  using its 2.5GHz spectrum and Massive
  MIMO to provide a greater 5G footprint. It
  basically piggybacks onto LTE networks,
  so coverage in the cities listed above
  extends hundreds, even thousands
  of square feet, rather than a few blocks.
  However, we won’t know much about
  Sprint’s 2020 plans until the date of its
  merger with T-Mobile is officially decided
  (but it’s looking good).
  T-Mobile: T-Mobile was the last carrier to
  bring 5G to its network, but that’s about to
  change in a big way. While it already offers
  minimal but speedy mmWave in a handful of
  cities (Cleveland, OH; Dallas, TX; Las Vegas,
  NV; Los Angeles, CA; and New York, NY),

T-Mobile has announced that it will roll out

“Nationwide 5G” on December 6 using its

expansive 600MHz spectrum.

It’s not nearly as fast as the 2Gbps-plus

speeds that mmWave networks have

reached—T-Mobile says it can reach speeds

of 450Mbps—and there are a lot of

unknowns, most notably how it scales and

how much of the nation will be covered. But

T-Mobile says it will reach 200 million

people, so it will definitely be the widest 5G

coverage map so far.

THE RIGHT PRICE

Lest we forget, you did start reading this

article because you want to know when to

You shouldn’t need to spend $1,500 to get speeds like these, and in 2020,

prices should start coming down.