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It’s all 5G now…

Concluding our review of prospects for current mobile bands, its worth making a final point: if you are selling or buying spectrum these days it is usually described as “5G”. The new generation certainly will support a wide range of bands (see diagram), and in a semantic sense everything in 3GPP Release 15 onwards can certainly be described as 5G, but that obscures day-to-day reality. In fact 4G services will…
Concluding our review of prospects for current mobile bands, its worth making a final point: if you are selling or buying spectrum these days it is usually described as “5G”. The new generation certainly will support a wide range of bands (see diagram), and in a semantic sense everything in 3GPP Release 15 onwards can certainly be described as 5G, but that obscures day-to-day reality. In fact 4G services will continue for years to come and 5G is only being deployed in a small number of pioneer bands which vary from region to region. 4G and 5G services will gradually intermingle during the 2020s and there are differing views on timescales. Whether the early 5G hype will create unrealisable consumer expectations remains to be seen. Read the full analysis and our individual guides to all the current mobile bands here.

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