The largest mobile operator in the United States planned to rely on mid-range (3.7GHz to 3.98GHz) 5G to attract more customers, but the opposite happened and it lost users, compared with the previously criticized AT&T low-frequency 5G to gain more users.
Previously, AT&T deployed 5G networks at 850MHz, which has caused great controversy, and 5G networks in the 850MHz band have the advantage of wide coverage, but its network speed is only faster than 4G, far from reaching the theoretical rate of 5G.
The earlier license obtained by U.S. operators is millimeter wave 5G, but operators have not built networks on a large scale, because the coverage of 5G millimeter wave technology is too small, and American operators simply do not have enough financial resources to build 5G networks covering the whole country with 5G millimeter wave technology.
In this case, the industry has been hoping that 5G cmwave technology is the best choice, 5G cmwave technology is based on the C-band 5G technology, it has both a wider coverage advantage, and higher data transmission rates, and Verizon is the pioneer of 5G cmwave technology, it has built a C-band 5G network covering 130 million people, almost half of the U.S. population, Verizon hopes to rely on the network to gain a leading edge.
However, more users are now choosing AT&T's low-frequency 5G instead of Verizon's mid-range 5G, showing consumers' hesitation about mid-range 5G. Verizon's IF 5G network takes into account both network coverage and wireless data rates, but its price is more expensive than AT&T's, and it seems that the price problem has become a problem for the promotion of IF 5G.
The experience of U.S. operators is quite similar to that of Chinese operators. According to the data released by the three major operators a few days ago, although their 5G package users have exceeded 800 million, the actual mobile phone users connected to the 5G network are only about 400 million, accounting for only half of the 5G package users.
China's three major operators are building medium-frequency 5G networks, China Unicom and China Telecom are building 5G networks at 3.5GHz, and China Mobile is building 5G networks at 2.6GHz. Although medium-frequency 5G has strong coverage advantages, they are still difficult to compare with the coverage of 1.8GHz 4G networks; while the power consumption of 5G base stations is almost 3 times that of 4G base stations, and the investment is higher, which leads to operators pricing 5G packages far exceeding 4G.
This has led to many 4G users are reluctant to switch to 5G networks, and even users who have switched to 5G packages also hope to use more affordable 4G packages, but operators are blocking 5G package users from switching back to low-cost 4G packages; even users who have switched to 5G packages are unwilling to buy 5G mobile phones, which can be seen from the fact that the 5G network users of the three major operators are nearly 100 million lower than the cumulative sales of 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market.
However, AT&T's data is the good news of 700MHz 5G of China Mobile and China Radio and Television, showing that consumers do not care about the low speed of low-frequency 5G, they pay more attention to the wide coverage of low-frequency 5G and low-cost advantages, perhaps with the completion of China Mobile and China Radio and Television's 700MHz 5G, under the significant decline in cost, they will provide consumers with more affordable 5G packages.
Interestingly, US operators are reluctant to use 5G millimeter wave to serve mobile phone users, but T-Mobile, one of the U.S. operators, has obtained many fixed wireless broadband users with 5G millimeter wave technology, that is, the combination of optical fiber network and 5G millimeter wave technology to establish a fixed base station to provide wireless broadband access services to limited families around it.
As a result of the medium frequency 5G operation in the US and Chinese markets, 5G centimeter wave technology is not as popular as expected, and its shortcomings such as small coverage, weak diffraction and diffraction capabilities deserve deep consideration in the industry, and its expensive cost has also become a major obstacle to 5G centimeter wave technology, while the lower cost of low-frequency 5G is more accepted by consumers and operators.