US 5G Speeds Trail Other Deployments, GSMA Told

5G speeds were 11.9 times faster in Saudi Arabia than 4G and 4.2 times faster in South Korea, Fogg said. In the U.S., speeds on Wi-Fi and 5G “are about the same,” he said. A lot of that is due to the popularity of low-band 5G spectrum “which has an effect on the average speeds that users across the country experience,” he said. Non-U.S. carriers rely more on mid-band spectrum, he noted. 5G speeds were especially low on AT&T, which is primarily using 850 MHz for 5G, and T-Mobile, using 600 MHz, both bands previously used for 4G, he said. Both bands “have tremendously good range, tremendously ability to deliver wide coverage,” but they don’t offer a “revolutionary high-speed experience,” Fogg said. AT&T and T-Mobile didn’t comment.

The U.S. example supports the “traditional wisdom” that when Wi-Fi is available, a smartphone should use that and not a cellular connection, Fogg said. Cellular connections won’t replace Wi-Fi, which can cope with much larger volumes of users, he said. Assessing the effect of high-band deployments is difficult during COVID-19, he said. “People are spending more time at home, they’re spending more time away from the central business districts where millimeter-wave services are currently deployed.”

“The U.S. has some of the fastest 5G speeds in the world, thanks to an abundance of high-band spectrum,” CTIA Senior Vice President Nick Ludlum told us responding to Fogg. “As the FCC makes more mid-band spectrum available for 5G, we will continue to provide Americans with a world-leading wireless experience.”

COVID-19 forced economies to quickly become much more digital, said Andy Penn, CEO of Australia’s Telstra. Many nations are relying on the internet to recover, he said: “The quality of our networks” is more important than ever. Telstra is betting on high-band, he said. “Millimeter-wave will supercharge 5G because its bandwidth allows greater capacity, particularly in small, defined areas,” Penn said.

Chinese carriers are testing use of high-band spectrum and it will be part of the “basic architecture” of 5G networks there, said Chi Yongsheng, China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute vice president. Carriers in China are already testing the spectrum in 47 cities as part of an “expedited” research program, he said.

5G is taking off worldwide with more than 60 providers deploying and more than 200 million 5G smartphones expected this year, said Tingfang Ji, Qualcomm Technologies senior director-engineering. The speeds mean a 10-hour audiobook can be downloaded in one second, he said. 5G capacity means more providers will offer unlimited data plans, he said.

“That we have successfully been able to work from home, across countries, industries … in response to COVID has shown that flexible working is viable and sustainable,” said Yoriko Goto, Deloitte Tohmatsu Group chair. Remote working will become the “new norm,” she predicted. One concern is the focus on diversity “may slip” during the pandemic “when it should remain at the top of executives’ agendas,” she said.

India had one of the most “draconian” shutdowns because of COVID-19, said Gopal Vittal, Bharti Airtel CEO-India and South Asia. Airtel shifted almost completely to remote work, he said. All but 15 of the 1,500-person network operating center are “managing the networks remotely,” Vittal said.

The pandemic shows the importance of leaders staying visible to staff, Vittal said. Every two weeks, Vittal holds a Zoom call with more than 12,000 employees: “I’ve never done that before. … There are hundreds of questions.” The Indian government imposed different restrictions across 700 provinces and the company had to develop “a granular province-by-province plan,” he said. The novel coronavirus taught Bharti Airtel it needs to develop “a different way of working,” with more virtual work and rethinking the number of company stores and the size of the sales force, he said.