If we want to come back down to reality, I've got an unpleasant slice of it for you: AT&T and Verizon will gobble up hundreds of megahertz of actually useful new 5G mid-band spectrum this winter, and guess what? Your Pixel 5 won't ever support any of it. The future-proofing argument is legitimate nonsense. And even if one day mmWave 5G is truly necessary tech in a smartphone for the masses, that day will come long after your Pixel 5 heads to a local Goodwill or your friendly neighborhood eWaste facility. In the end, Google was pressured by operators to add an expensive feature to its smartphone it doesn't actually need. You're telling me you need multi-gigabit mmWave for Zoom? Come on. And that's to say nothing of the fact that T-Mobile's mid-band 5G would work just as well, and likely in reality better due to its coverage, in these already fairly fanciful scenarios. take a video call with a better connection? You're going to stream video games in direct sunlight, all but guaranteeing your phone will almost immediately overheat? This is silly - these aren't real things people will do just to ensure mmWave coverage, and anyone earnestly arguing otherwise is just parroting the 5G marketing drivel Verizon and the like have been spewing for the past year. In the end, Google was pressured by operators to add an expensive feature to its smartphone it doesn't actually need.Įven with the outdoor mmWave coverage that currently exists, what exactly is the realistic use case here? You're going to walk to a specific street corner or park to. Real good job on the 5G upsell there, Google. Oh, and T-Mobile won't even stock the Pixel 5, mmWave regardless. Instead, T-Mobile will focus on its mid-band holdings, which offer a sizable chunk of the real world speeds of mmWave at a far, far greater range. Similarly, while T-Mobile does have a mmWave network it touts as part of its "layer cake" 5G strategy, no one believes it plans a mass rollout of the technology imminently (funnily enough, the Pixel 5 won't even support T-Mobile mmWave at launch). There is no meaningful consumer marketing of mmWave at AT&T. AT&T only advertises mmWave as part of its 5G business offerings, and tends to only build out where known corporate customer demand exists. Both AT&T and T-Mobile have slowed rollouts of their mmWave 5G networks to an absolute crawl. That may sound as obvious as it does unsatisfying, but I truly don't buy it. Google claims that its carrier partners all want next-generation smartphones to support mmWave 5G. The answer I received wasn't very pleasing, but it was illuminating: carriers. Speaking to the Pixel team on a virtual Q&A after today's press conference, I asked about the logic behind adding an expensive, largely useless technology on the unlocked version of the Pixel 5. What is disputable is the reasoning for their inclusion, and I take real issue with Google's decision here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |