Disabling 5G on Your New Verizon iPhone May Actually Make It Faster

If you are a A Verizon customer, you may have noticed that the 5G data speeds you receive on the carrier’s national 5G network are often slower than 4G LTE. This is due to the technology the country’s largest carrier is using to cover the country with 5G signals from coast to coast. It’s called Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) and Verizon explains it this way: “Verizon’s 5G Nationwide uses Dynamic Spectrum Sharing technology, which allows 5G service to work simultaneously with 4G LTE on multiple spectrum bands. This new technology gives Verizon the ability to dynamically use its entire portfolio of current spectrum resources to serve 4G and 5G customers. “

Verizon customers receive two different types of 5G signals. The Ultra Wideband 5G uses a high band mmWave spectrum that does not travel long distances. It also does not penetrate structures very well. This is why it is difficult to find an area of ​​the country where the Verizon UWB is located. The good news is that mmWave 5G offers very fast speeds. DSS, on the other hand, allows Verizon to share 5G and 4G LTE spectrum without having to rearrange existing low-band waves. In addition to Verizon’s DSS, the two T-Mobile and AT&T relies on long-range, low-band signals to cover the United States with 5G coverage. And the low band can also easily penetrate into buildings. But what they don’t do is provide users with blazingly fast data speeds.

And that’s why PCMag reports that Verizon users with the new 5G iPhone 12 line, the Google Pixel 5 and other phones that support both Nationwide 5G and Ultra Wideband service may suffer from slow speeds. How long? Slower than 4G LTE. If this is the case with your service, the best bet is to turn off 5G on your Verizon phone. The handset will automatically select a 5G network over 4G LTE. So if you don’t turn off the setting, your phone will just automatically connect to a slower network with one major exception. If your Verizon 5G device supports UWB and you’re in an area with UWB coverage, you might be better off keeping 5G on. However, keep in mind that finding an Ultra WideBand 5G signal is like finding a needle in a haystack right now with availability in just over 60 cities.

Even Verizon itself admits this problem. A spokesperson said: “For most customers, the performance of our national 5G network will be similar to that of 4G. [DSS] is new technology and we keep modifying it as we go. We expect performance improvement through 2021 and beyond. “PCMag did an actual test in New York City (let’s hope they wore a mask!). An iPhone 12 Pro was taken to eight sites in the Big Apple. The first seven sites had a DSS signal and the result was Data speeds lower than 4G LTE service In the last test, a UWB connection was established with data download speeds over seven times faster than DSS 5G, at over 700 Mbps.