5G Not Ready For Prime time

This week has seen the hype for 5G, the creatively titled

successor to 4G mobile internet connectivity, go from a

simmer to a boil as Qualcomm, AT&T, Verizon, and

Samsung rattled off a series of launch plans for early

next year, while Apple was reported to be sitting out

the technology until at least 2020. As much as I love the

excitement surrounding the introduction of the new cellular

networking standard, I’m inclined to think that Apple has it

right: none of us should be factoring 5G into our phone

purchases in the coming year.

It’s not that 5G isn’t hugely promising. Samsung today

issued a press release saying it’s achieved a throughput

of 1.7Gbps with a combination of Verizon’s spectrum and

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem. That’s the best-

case scenario, but even Qualcomm’s real-world modeling

suggests a still-impressive jump to speeds of around 490

Mbps, an order of magnitude improvement from the 4G

LTE networks we have today that typically offer connections

of around 20Mbps to 50Mbps.

But pay attention to the circumstances here: both Samsung

and Qualcomm are telling us about their lab results. No

carrier or manufacturer is walking around cities with actual 5G

devices yet and giving us truly real-world measurements. At

Qualcomm’s big 5G get-together in Hawaii yesterday, my

colleague Sean Hollister was only shown one Samsung 5G

phone, which he wasn’t allowed to touch, a 5G Moto Mod,

and a couple of chunky 5G mobile hot spots, and none of

those devices exhibited speeds higher than 140Mbps.