T-Mobile Busts Gigabit Barrier With Mid-Band New York City 5G
Fast, citywide 5G may finally be coming to the US. T-Mobile’s new 2.5GHz 5G network in New York City broke a gigabit in tests done this week by Ookla Speedtest’s Milan Milanovic, showing it’s possible to have truly speedy 5G in the US without messing with fickle, short-range millimeter-wave technology.
This feat is especially impressive given that T-Mobile is using Sprint’s 5G airwaves in New York, plus its own 4G system. Sprint’s 5G system previously averaged around 150Mbps in New York in our tests, and T-Mobile’s 4G system averaged 57Mbps and maxed out at around 300Mbps in our Fastest Mobile networks tests last year.
Uploads have also been greatly improved, with speeds breaking 100Mbps. In previous tests of T-Mobile 5G uploads, we saw speeds of 30-35Mbps.
“What’s incredible about TMobile 2.5GHz deployment is the spectral efficiency they’re getting out of it,” Milanovic said in another tweet. “Significantly higher than what Sprint used to achieve out of the same bandwidth. Pretty remarkable.”
The network initially got 726-802Mbps using 40MHz of 2.5GHz spectrum bonded with 20MHz of T-Mobile’s band 66 LTE, jumping to 1.2Gbps when T-Mobile added another 20MHz of 2.5GHz 5G. Both the 5G and LTE sides are using 256QAM encoding, and the 5G side uses 4×4 MIMO antennas, according to Milanovic’s screenshots.
This is much more efficient than what’s available on millimeter-wave systems right now, which are still limited to 2×2 MIMO and 64QAM encoding. Millimeter-wave systems like Verizon’s get high speeds by using a lot more spectrum, but less efficiently.
According to Milanovic’s screenshots, the network is “hung” on T-Mobile’s band 66 LTE. Current 5G networks must use an existing 4G network to establish their connections.
Will This Hold Up When We Leave Our Homes?
Obviously, we’re looking at ideal speeds right now. The network is very lightly loaded, and people in New York City, by and large, are using their home Wi-Fi and aren’t even outside. I remember that when I first tested Sprint’s 5G in Dallas on its launch day, I saw speeds of up to 700Mbps on a network that later would average around 200Mbps nationwide.
But these speeds bode well for mid-band 5G performance, and throw up more questions about whether US carriers will continue to struggle with the difficult, expensive millimeter-wave technology, especially as more mid-band 5G airwaves become available in an auction at the end of this year.
T-Mobile has currently launched its mid-band 5G only in Philadelphia and New York; it hasn’t given a calendar or list of cities for where else it’s coming soon. Almost all of the rest of T-Mobile’s 5G network uses low-band, which has speeds that are pretty much like 4G right now.
The mid-band system works on existing T-Mobile 5G phones as well as the Galaxy S20 series from Sprint. Older Sprint 5G phones will lose 5G access as T-Mobile flips Sprint’s 5G network over to its own label.
I’d love to test this myself, but T-Mobile’s 2.5GHz coverage isn’t within walking distance of my house. And without transportation in New York City being safe, I can’t get farther than walking distance from my house right now.
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by PCMag’s parent company, Ziff Davis.
