states, but it accomplished this by using low-band 600MHz frequencies, which reach far and wide but don’t offer a lot of bandwidth compared to older 4G/LTE technologies. T-Mobile was the first carrier to boast 5G coverage in all 50 U.S. Verizon went in the opposite direction, betting on the much higher mmWave 5G spectrum that could deliver incredible speeds at very limited ranges. Dish Wirelessįive years ago, T-Mobile and AT&T began their rollouts using this low-band spectrum they’d already licensed for 5G. The big three carriers - AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon - have always jockeyed for position to get enough spectrum for their needs, but most of those licenses for the lower-band frequencies used by 3G and 4G/LTE were issued years ago. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocates and licenses spectrum for each carrier. Radio frequencies have always been a limited resource. If you’ve ever tried to set up a Wi-Fi router in your home, you may have already encountered this on a smaller scale: 2.4GHz Wi-Fi travels farther and penetrates solid objects more effectively than 5GHz Wi-Fi, but it’s not nearly as fast and can’t handle as many devices. Put simply, lower frequencies offer significantly better range and coverage than higher ones but don’t offer as much capacity or bandwidth. These weren’t a factor in 4G/LTE network deployments since they all used the same low-band spectrum. Jesse Hollington / Digital Trendsīy comparison, 5G runs the gamut from the same low-band spectrum used by 4G/LTE to the extremely high frequency (EHF) 27GHz–39GHz spectrum - and there’s every indication newer 5G deployments could go even higher.Ĭombined with the advances pioneered by 5G technology, these additional blocks of the spectrum offer unique advantages and disadvantages. Some deployments went slightly beyond that - as high as 2.3GHz on AT&T and 2.5GHz on Sprint - but those were less common. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X35 will bring 5G to your next smartwatchįor example, 3G and 4G/LTE services typically ran in the 600MHz (0.6GHz) to 1.9GHz spectrum.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X75 ushers in the next era of 5G connectivity Green and orange dots on your iPhone? Here’s what they really mean

Phone icons