Beware the 5G Hype: Wireless Rivals Fuel Confusion
09 Gennaio 2019 - 06:46PM
Dow Jones News
By Drew FitzGerald
What's 5G wireless service? On this, companies can agree: It's
what comes after 4G.
Asking for a more specific definition of the wireless industry's
brand new thing invites controversy. U.S. telecom companies have
started slapping the 5G label on a smorgasbord of technologies,
sowing confusion in an industry not known for its simplicity.
AT&T Inc. gained attention in recent days for putting "5GE"
labels atop some customers' Android smartphone screens. The E
stands for "evolution, " a sign of the added bandwidth those phones
can access as the company lays the groundwork for full-fledged 5G
service.
In a December blog post, AT&T Wireless executive Kevin
Petersen referred to the upgrades as "an important set of
technologies that AT&T is rolling out" while the company also
installs fully-compliant 5G wireless infrastructure in a dozen
cities.
Despite the name, the 5GE-labeled phones are still only capable
of connecting to 4G service. T-Mobile US Inc. technology chief
Neville Ray said in a blog post the move was "duping customers into
thinking they're getting something they're not." Verizon
Communications Inc. also criticized the tag, arguing real 5G
service must use fresh hardware and new radio technology to deserve
the moniker.
"Verizon won't take an old phone and just change the 4 in the
status bar to a 5," the company's chief technology officer, Kyle
Malady, wrote this week in an open letter published online and as
full-page newspaper ads.
Yet Verizon's critics say it, too, has blurred the line, by
focusing its early 5G service on home broadband instead of
cellphone improvements. The company developed its own 5G-like
specifications years ago to make sure it could get equipment in the
field early. The company will upgrade that gear later with new
machines subject to the same cutting-edge specifications that other
carriers are using.
Verizon spokesman Kevin King said the company has "been pretty
clear from the beginning that we're developing a mobile solution"
as well as home broadband. "We're able to walk and chew gum at the
same time."
The cable industry joined the fray this week at CES 2019, the
consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, by unveiling "10G," a
reference to cable companies' goal of providing wired broadband
service at 10-gigabit speeds. The acronym is unrelated to cellphone
carriers' fifth-generation wireless technology, though the parallel
branding wasn't lost on wireless executives.
Cable companies want to highlight their efforts to boost
broadband speeds beyond the 1-gigabit speeds on offer today, said
Brian Dietz, a spokesman for cable trade group NCTA. "Our industry
felt like it was important to be in that conversation as well," he
said.
It's hardly the first time telecom marketers have used
engineering patter to muddy the waters. T-Mobile caught flak in
2010 for putting 4G labels atop phone screens connected to its
upgraded HSPA+ network, which critics argued was only enhanced 3G.
Its executives said the new branding was fair because subscribers'
data bandwidth drastically improved.
All four nationwide carriers cover most urban areas with 4G LTE
service, which for now remains the gold standard available to
consumers. Carriers will need to install tens of thousands of new
radio systems to deliver wireless 5G signals. It could take years
before a significant number of people own 5G-capable cellphone
models, the first of which are only now hitting the market.
Even as Apple Inc. struggles to sell enough of its latest
iPhones, U.S. wireless carriers are attracting plenty of new
customers with existing technology. T-Mobile said Wednesday it
ended the fourth quarter with one million more phone customers on
postpaid plans, which are valued because subscribers with monthly
bills tend to stick around longer. Verizon said Tuesday it added
650,000 of those phone plans in the fourth quarter, another
positive sign for industry profits.
Official 5G specifications, for the record, are set by 3GPP, a
global industry group. Its engineering rules then go to the United
Nations-affiliated International Telecommunication Union. Engineers
say the process is slow but gives companies the confidence to make
sure the billions of dollars they invest in development and
manufacturing isn't headed toward a dead end.
The new 5G standards, like previous generations, will offer
cellphone users a big speed boost. They will also support dense
antenna arrays that support a swarm of devices and will make
networks more responsive, cutting the time it takes for connected
machines to process commands. Those advances could give wireless
carriers a bigger foothold in sectors like virtual reality,
industrial automation and transportation.
Those distinctions might not matter to customers. The public
pays more attention to smoother videos and faster downloads than to
technical specifications, said Walt Piecyk, an analyst at brokerage
BTIG. In that respect, AT&T's upgrades might deserve their
numerical advantage.
"It's not that complicated," Mr. Piecyk said. "Consumers will
just figure out what works and what doesn't."
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 09, 2019 12:31 ET (17:31 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.