AT&T nerfing its 5G network, Speedtest results are similar to 4G

[captain_to_fire]

Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/5g-speedtest-att-938865/ 

 

Quote

Reddit user “mwb6d” posted an image of their Netgear Nighthawk 5G Hotspot connected to AT&T’s 5G network. The user then posted two screenshots: a 5G speedtest using the Nighthawk in Indianapolis directly across the street from a low cell tower, and then a test using the same equipment in the same spot, but with the Nighthawk on LTE instead. 

 

You’ll immediately notice that the two speedtests are very similar to one another. They both have the exact same ping time and their download speeds are in the same ballpark. The only big difference between 5G and 4G, it seems, is upload speed: the 5G speedtest shows that 5G uploads are more than twice as fast as 4G.

 

Why are these speedtests so similar? Shouldn’t the 5G test be crazy fast, or at the very least much faster than the 4G test?

Oh boy. Remember the overhyped promise of AT&T’s 5G network? It looks like the overpriced Netgear hotspot is off to a bad start. 

 

Granted those speeds are still crazy fast but not as fast as advertised not to mention not worth it for a $499 hotspot and a $70 monthly fee for a pathetic 15GB data plan. For a next generation network, the only advantage you’re getting is slightly faster upload speeds but don’t get started on streaming a game with it because you’ll be capped to 15GB. 

[ZacoAttaco]

The more I hear about 5G, the less I'm excited for it.

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, ZacoAttaco said:

The more I hear about 5G, the less I'm excited for it.

carriers like AT&T faking 5G makes actual 5G (5G NR) less exciting 

 

[Dabombinable]

Fun fact: that download speed is nearly twice as fast as Australia's maximum consumer NBN speeds...when on one of the few fiber parts of it.

[ZacoAttaco]

Just now, captain_to_fire said:

carriers like AT&T faking 5G makes actual 5G (5G NR) less exciting 

 

Between these stories and the reports from OnePlus,

It sounds like 5G is still a while a way from being viable or even affordable.

[GoldenLag]

Its false advertising. Its just slightly better 4G. They claim 5G coverage even though it isnt

[ZacoAttaco]

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Fun fact: that download speed is nearly twice as fast as Australia's maximum consumer NBN speeds...when on one of the few fiber parts of it.

Just ran a SpeedTest and can confirm, not currently on NBN though.

Man I don't realize just how bad our internet is until we compare it directly.

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Just ran a SpeedTest and can confirm, not currently on NBN though.

Man I don't realize just how bad our internet is until we compare it directly.

No wonder @leadeater is gloating on how NZ internet is better.  /jk 

[ZacoAttaco]

3 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

No wonder @leadeater is gloating on how NZ internet is better.  /jk  

Yeah well I've had worse so...it could be worse...but only just.

[captain_to_fire]

7 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

It sounds like 5G is still a while a way from being viable or even affordable.

When our wireless carriers started rolling out LTE, prices for phone plans didn’t change but in exchange they killed unlimited data plans after a year and a half. With 5G they can in theory keep current unlimited data plans but in exchange for more money because deploying 5G from what I’ve read is expensive. They have to use beamforming and small cells to offset the constant interference of millimeter waves. 

[TetraSky]

Of course it's no different, they are faking it up. 

[leadeater]

22 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

No wonder @leadeater is gloating on how NZ internet is better.  /jk 

It's just nice to not be the butt end of the joke anymore, Aus internet in the early 2000's was a lot better than ours. Have to seize the opportunity while we can 

[captain_to_fire]

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's just nice to not be the butt end of the joke anymore, Aus internet in the early 2000's was a lot better than ours. Have to seize the opportunity while we can 

Isn’t early 2000s are the glory days of 56K dial up internet and DSL is the new technology? Does it mean Australia had DSL first before NZ? 

[GeoffLucas]

Meh.  It's AT&T.  There's a reason they've consistently been rated as the lowest scoring customer satisfaction of any major company.  They basically lie, take advantage of customers, and provide piss-poor service.

[Spotty]

I would need to look in to this more, but at this stage I believe that this network is not the same as the rebranded "5Ge" LTE network that AT&T is deceiving customers with which I posted about a few weeks ago here.

While the fake "5Ge" runs on 4G LTE devices and is just AT&Ts 4G LTE with a name change, the Nighthawk hotspot modem used by the reddit user uses the Snapdragon X50 5G Modem for actual(?) 5G connection. Some areas in Louisiana are part of AT&Ts trial locations for actual(?) 5G, branded by AT&T as "5G+", which is also what is shown to be connected to in the images on reddit. From what I've read it's only select test locations and it's not available at all towers in Louisana yet.

My guess is whatever tower he's connecting too isn't properly supporting "5G+" yet. Network congestion could still play a factor. It might need other upgrades such as backhaul upgrades to fully enable 5G speeds for users.
 

13 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's just nice to not be the but end of the joke anymore, Aus internet in the early 2000's was a lot better than ours. Have to seize the opportunity while we can 

How bad was your internet? I was on dial-up until the early 2010s. (3G was available, but only one cell tower for my town and it was $100 for 10GB and would be slower than dial up between 3pm - 12am, and the frequent drop outs meant it wasn't reliable enough to do anything with).

[schwellmo92]

48 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Fun fact: that download speed is nearly twice as fast as Australia's maximum consumer NBN speeds...when on one of the few fiber parts of it.

Aussiebroadband have 250/100 consumer plans, and our LTE in Australia is generally faster than those speed tests. Our mobile networks are some of the best in the world.

[ZacoAttaco]

2 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

When our wireless carriers started rolling out LTE, prices for phone plans didn’t change but in exchange they killed unlimited data plans after a year and a half. With 5G they can in theory keep current unlimited data plans but in exchange for more money because deploying 5G from what I’ve read is expensive. They have to use beamforming and small cells to offset the constant interference of millimeter waves. 

So you'd have to think it could be a considerable price increase?

[leadeater]

19 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Isn’t early 2000s are the glory days of 56K dial up internet and DSL is the new technology? Does it mean Australia had DSL first before NZ? 

Yep they had DSL first, was more wide spread and they also got VDSL in places years before we anything faster than ADSL2+. They also had cable options as well in certain places. Also most of our road side boxes were really old, long cable runs and old cable so DSL services over those were really bad and a lot of the trenches had water ingress issues during rain (very common here) so internet would break or go extremely slow during rain.

[leadeater]

22 minutes ago, Spotty said:

How bad was your internet? I was on dial-up until the early 2010s. (3G was available, but only one cell tower for my town and it was $100 for 10GB and would be slower than dial up between 3pm - 12am, and the frequent drop outs meant it wasn't reliable enough to do anything with).

Being stuck on dailup here was common too, even if you were not that far out of town. In towns not so bad but DSL services weren't that good due long cable lengths and age of the cables. 3G was not an option either, 3G was in towns only. If you were lucky you could get long range wireless in more rural areas but that was extremely expensive.

[DrMacintosh]

This is exactly why Apple decided to wait until American Telecom can start being honest and deploy a real 5G system before making a 5G phone. A steady pace wins the race.....

[captain_to_fire]

10 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

So you'd have to think it could be a considerable price increase?

I don’t know. Could mmWaves scale up to a large country like the US? Maybe for smaller countries it can scale up properly. That’s why I’d rather see more LTE-A (aka true 4G) deployments because it will still use sub-1GHz spectrum together with frequencies >1GHz. 

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

This is exactly why Apple decided to wait until American Telecom can start being honest and deploy a real 5G system before making a 5G phone. A steady pace wins the race.....

Gotta be in it to win it 

 

Honestly it doesn't make any difference, it isn't actually Apple or any other company being smart or tactical, just waiting for 5G cellular modules to be cheaper. They'll still support 4G when used anyway so there is no need to actually wait other than profit margin on the devices.

[PlayStation 2]

"I need 16gbps internet speeds on my phone"
How about we cut to the chase rather than trying to brand something else as "totally new" when it isn't?

[tbake0155]

Speed isn't the only change that will come with 5G, the big change with 5G is latency. Since the wavelengths are so much shorter in the higher frequency waves that 5G uses, the latency for consumer wireless connections will be drastically reduced, in the order of possibly a 50 times reduction in latency from 4G.

[captain_to_fire]

24 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yep they had DSL first, was more wide spread and they also got VDSL in places years before we anything faster than ADSL2

I remember those days of early DSL and my ISP offered 256 kbps, 512 kbps and 1 mbps. Kids nowadays don’t know the struggle of downloading songs from the virus factory Limewire, when I could’ve just bought the CD.