Is 5G a bit pants?

Every now and then my phone stalls loading something and usually when it does I notice it’s on 5G, whereas otherwise still mostly 4G. This is a very anecdotal great story, but it happens more often than not. Is 5G still too young, or something?

The 5G signal isn’t that strong I’ve found. 4G more reliable and high speeds, but if my phone has found a 5G, it’s often not full bars like 4G.

5G has a shorter range, so there is every possibility the phone is trying to use a fairly weak 5G signal instead of a stronger 4G signal.

I definitely tend to find 5g can be far slower than 4g a lot of the time around here. Glad to see it’s not just me.

Then there is the nanobots/Covid issue too.

It’s better, but it completely kills the battery.

I definitely tend to find 5g can be far slower than 4g a lot of the time around here.

Same around here normally. Occasionally it’s super zippy, but often slower, or at least it feels like it’s slower.

Yup, same here, utter crap when I can even get it.

I find it better than 4G on EE. But the main reason we are using it is that it can carry far more devices than 4G.

It’s pants. In city, suburbia or the countryside if my phone says 5G it’s latency central, then it’ll suddenly act like it’s plumbed directly into JANet.

Poll, Poll, Poll, Poll… oh a DNS response, oh some bits, Wait, Wait, Wait…. ALL THE BITS.

5G is the HS2 of Gs.

I was thinking of disabling 5G due to its extreme pantsness. Phone says I have a 5G signal, can’t download anything. Useless.

Yeah that’s it @hot_fiat

but its 1 louder

Still on 5G in Bilston?

You need 8G early access.

I’ve had to turn the 5g off, everywhere it flashes up it’s shit.

Ive written to bill gates though.

What is this ‘5G’ of which you speak? I have a greater chance of seeing a herd of neon unicorns trotting up the high street than seeing a 5G icon on my phone screen anywhere within about 15-20 miles of where I live. There are plenty of 4G dead spots when I walk home from town, and the centre of Bath isn’t much better. I’m expecting to see 5G service around here sometime in the next century. Or before the heat death of the universe, whichever comes first.

the centre of Bath isn’t much better.

Makes sense water is denser than air.

UK operators appear to have their 5G in the 3-4GHz range, which is above the 2/3/4G ranges and could give 1Gbps in an ideal world.

I suspect the major problem (at least in rural areas) is backbone capacity which I understand to be mostly shared with 4G capacity.

The fabled nirvana of 10Gbps direct to your phone is a long way away

EE throttle speeds on most of their SIM packages these days anyhow

Where I live 5G isn’t a thing yet. However when I leave the shire to go to the modern world I don’t see much difference either way between 4G/5G

There do appear to be more times when the phone just freezes when in poor signal areas where it can’t decide between 4 or 5

When getting my phone 5G was not even a feature I was interested in downloading was always ok for me on 4G

The only difference for me has been going from needing a booster on the roof at home that resulted in 3or4 bars of 4G to getting 1 bar of 5G… without a booster.

I can sit in my office in Manchester city centre, 5G and full bars. Completely unresponsive. Not the best experience really.

Absolutely kills the battery and I’ve found it no faster than 4g, I have my phone set to no longer use 5g. It just isn’t any better in any way for me.

On holiday in Spain and it’s terrific.  IANAE but  sometimes it feels like we get a crappier version of everything in the UK

Mines fast at home, 70-80Mbps down and 15-20 up, which is about double what i get on 4G.

Situation is reversed in the office though, 4G is about 60 up/8 down, 5G about half that.

Though, there are probably only about 200-250 users at any time within range of the nearest tower at home, and 30-40000 at work (and god knows home many towers!)

You can actually see the 4G/5G networks slowing down at home when there is a crash on the motorway (about 2km from me).

I can sit in my office in Manchester city centre, 5G and full bars. Completely unresponsive. Not the best experience really.

Glad it’s not just me. Recent trip to Manchester and I might as well have not had any signal.

I set my phone to 4g only but it seems to reset to include 5g every time wifi is turned off or on. Samsung phone if anyone had any ideas to make it permanent?

You can change the protocol, mine stays permanently on whatever i choose though, on both work and private phones. (S22 and A52)

It’s not just 5G, Vodafone have turned off 3G, we have a significant number of devices that have dropped to the 2G network as 4G isn’t strong enough. I just wish they’d actually properly rollout one technology before jumping on the next.

On holiday in Spain and it’s terrific.  IANAE but  sometimes it feels like we get a crappier version of everything in the UK

Went to visit a friend and ride in Slovakia, every where we went there was perfect 5G even in bottom of a valley or middle of nowhere, apparently they just skipped the whole broadband and wifi thing and invested heavily in good 5G network from the off and it worked really well.

I think it is UK doing things half-ar*sed as usual

On holiday in Spain and it’s terrific.  IANAE but  sometimes it feels like we get a crappier version of everything in the UK

Pilot friend of mine reckons the UK has the worst phone coverage of anywhere he flies to.

That’ll be due to him having his phone in flight mode until he lands – surely?

It’s great for home broadband where i live, 580 down/48 up for £22 a month. would be less but it’s a rolling contract as we intended to switch to community fibre but all the time it’s doing it’s thing we will keep it. Router’s wireless isn’t that good so we are using it in passthrough mode with a mesh system, we are on the 6th floor with 3 transmitters in line of sight but would imagine it would be lower speeds if we were not so high up.

Seems to work on the phone out and about o.k. too though this is in that London