For Apple users and those looking to join the Apple ecosystem, autumn is iPhone season. This year, a range of iPhone 12-series smartphones are available for purchase.
This fresh iPhone crop builds in a capability that had long been expected: support for high-speed 5G wireless-data service. This technology can dramatically improve web access, video playback and file downloads on a smartphone.
5G has been available on Android phones for a while, but iPhone support guarantees it greater visibility.
So, is 5G for you? That is, should its presence on the new Apple phones prompt you to upgrade from an older iPhone model? It’s a tricky question.
The big-three wireless carriers have been deploying their 5G networks in the Twin Cities and across parts of the state for a while, but 5G performance varies depends on carrier and location.
The good news is that 5G from all of the carriers should work fine on all the new iPhones — including the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. I’ve been trying 5G in the Twin Cities using loaner iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro devices, along with 5G SIM cards from Verizon and T-Mobile, with mostly good results.
Apple says it put in a lot of work to ensure that 5G works well on its phones.
So, with a shiny new iPhone in hand, you just need to select your carrier: AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon. This might mean sticking with the carrier you have now, or trying out a new one — and 5G may be a big factor in your decision.
Here’s what you need to know about 5G.
FAST, FASTER AND FASTEST
How speedily you can access the Internet on your phone using 5G will depend on what kind of 5G is at your disposal. Not all 5G is created equal. The tech breaks into three broad categories:
High band. This is the speediest of the 5G frequencies with download speeds that will blow your mind. They’re up to twice as fast as those provided by the speediest wired home Internet service in the Twin Cities. But high band is only available in very limited urban areas, and it’s meant to be used primarily outdoors since it is easily foiled by walls and other obstructions.
Low band. This wireless frequency has the greatest coverage, blanketing much of the country (including rural areas). However, its speeds are much slower than high band—often on par with traditional LTE. But low band functions about as well indoors as outdoors.
Mid band. This is a good compromise technology with higher speeds than low band provides, and much greater (though primarily urban) coverage than high band offers. And, like low band, it works about as well indoors as outdoors.
WHAT CARRIERS OFFER HERE
Unfortunately, not every carrier offers every kind of 5G everywhere. So, with 5G in mind, you have to pick your carrier based on where you live and what 5G options are available at that location.
Here’s how it breaks down.
Verizon. This carrier’s claim to fame in Minnesota is its high-band service, which is deployed in downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis, and a few surrounding areas.
Verizon high band is crazy fast. Testing it out in downtown St. Paul’s Rice Park, I sometimes achieved downloads approaching 2 gigabits per second. For context, home broadband service in the Twin Cities typically tops out at about 1 gigabit per second.
But as I roamed downtown, my speed tests usually yielded much slower (though still respectable) speeds, from the low to high hundreds of megabits a second.
And my high-band service dropped completely if I lost line of sight with or wandered too far away from one of the Verizon transmitters installed on downtown light poles and such. And, as noted, high band does not work indoors.
Verizon plans to have its high band service (branded as Ultra Wideband) in 60 U.S. cities by the end of the year.
Outside of its limited high-band service footprints in urban areas, Verizon provides only low-band service.
T-Mobile. Like Verizon, T-Mobile provides low-band service across the metro area and around the state. It also provides high band in a handful of U.S. cities, but these don’t include Minneapolis or St. Paul.
But T-Mobile’s star attraction in the Twin Cities is its mid-band service, which provides decent (though not high band-amazing) speeds. Standing outside Xcel Energy Center, I consistently got downloads in the mid hundreds of megabits per second.
Elsewhere (such as my home office to the west of downtown), I’d see speeds in the neighborhood of 100 megabits per second, or roughly on par with my Comcast home broadband service.
T-Mobile does not yet promise spotless mid-band throughout the metro area, but it lists Columbia Heights, Elk River, Hopkins and Maplewood — in addition to St. Paul and Minneapolis — as some places where the service works pretty well.
T-Mobile’s mid-band is a byproduct of its recent merger with Sprint, which no longer exists as a separate wireless provider.
T-Mobile and Sprint, together, achieve tiered nationwide 5G service that no other carrier can yet match. T-Mobile provides an apt analogy in the form of a three-layer cake that illustrates the proportional availability of its high-band, mid-band, and low-band service in the United States.
AT&T: This carrier offers low-band service throughout the metro area. That often means downloads in the neighborhood of 50 megabits per second, in my experience, or roughly on par with my AT&T LTE service on my year-old iPhone 11 Pro.
AT&T also offers high-band service in 36 U.S. cities, but they don’t include St. Paul or Minneapolis.
SO WHAT’S THE UPSHOT?
If you’re shopping for a new iPhone with 5G in mind, you may come to the same conclusion I did: T-Mobile looks awfully tempting.
Its mid-band has decent performance. And while it’s slower than Verizon’s high-band, it works over a wider geographical area with performance that is superior to that of low-band.
I cannot definitively attest to its reliability based on brief testing in a limited area, but under those restricted circumstances it performed splendidly for me.
AT&T and Verizon have reportedly been snapping up spectrum for their own mid-band offerings down the road.
If you live or work in or near one of the downtowns, meanwhile, Verizon’s high-band might be worth a look. Heck, the carrier offers it as a home broadband service if your address qualifies.
In any case, you can snag one of the iPhone 12 variants secure in the knowledge that it will work with 5G from any of the carriers — and with Apple enhancements to make the technology work better.
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