Verizon Gives More Reasons To Turn off 5G

American telecommunications company, Verizon Wireless, has announced that its newly acquired Additional spectrum is making a difference for Verizon 4G and getting better than its nationwide 5G network according to the test conducted by PC Magazine’s (PCMag) Sasscha Segan.

The company said after last week's tweet suggesting that users turn off their phone's 5G to save battery life, and there seems to be a multitude of reasons for Verizon customers to stick with 4G.

The additional spectrum is believed to be making the difference for Verizon 4G, and not the C-band spectrum that has been in the news recently.

Verizon bid $1.89 billion on Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) licenses last year and has been putting the newly acquired spectrum to work for its 4G service in certain locations. Segan explained that there are likely technical reasons why Verizon is not using this spectrum for 5G yet.

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Segan found a couple of these spots and tested CBRS-assisted 4G speeds versus 5G. With the exception of range-limited, super-fast Ultra-Wideband 5G, 4G won by a landslide. In one location, 4G download speeds reached 815 Mbps, while 5G based on Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (that’s the widespread but slower variety known as DSS) only hit 358 Mbps. This was a test of just a couple of locations of course, but Segan points out that it bodes well for the kinds of improvements we can expect when C-band becomes available.

“If you’re in a spot with Verizon's 'UWB’ millimeter-wave 5G, it’s absolutely terrific. UWB is the fastest form of 5G available today. But the DSS ‘nationwide’ 5G just isn’t providing any advantage right now. I’d say, turn it off if you can and check back in a few months to see if they’ve improved the situation,” Segan said.

This simply means that 4G is actually good and getting better while 5G would be best used with a C-band spectrum. In the meantime, unless you live next door to an Ultra-Wideband cell site, you can probably turn off Verizon 5G and be rest assured that you’re getting the best network performance possible for now.

“If you’re buying a Verizon phone soon and you’re interested in future performance, make sure it has C-band,” Segan says.