In reply to a post by jchamier:

My O2 PAYG SIM disables the 5G option on my android phones.

Disable 5G yes, but not stop you turning it off, which is a different thing. If you have a 5G on your phone why would O2 disable it? If they are doing that, then maybe you should look at a different provider if you want 5G.
I am with smarty sim only contract and even on their lowest priced package they allow access to 5G

Exactly, the 3G has moved around on O2 and Vodafone from 2.1 GHz to 0.9 GHz and now has been shrunk to the minimum possible before being turned off. On EE and Three its still on 2.1 GHz as they didn’t have any 0.9

How do you know that?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Disable 5G yes, but not stop you turning it off, which is a different thing. If you have a 5G on your phone why would O2 disable it?

O2 don’t offer 5G on PAYG.

I am with smarty sim only contract and even on their lowest priced package they allow access to 5G

Smarty is good but as part of Three they don’t have the reputation

How do you know that?

People on forums run tools on rooted Android and post their findings. And you can look at Ofcom to see the frequency allocations by company.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 12-Mar-23 20:29:53)

My phone has 5G capability. The Three SIM is 5G enabled at no extra cost - all Three SIMs including PAYG have for several years past been so. Even when mounted in or supplied for a 4G or lower Three phone or router.The only determinants of what "G" is connected to is the strength of the 5G signal and the user-set options on the phone. Mine is a OnePlus 8 Pro. My city centre 5G connecting was purely for testing what happens there when I was there for normal reasons. The result was of interest not consequence to me.

My comments on what happens in Manchester City environments, and where Three 5G is available in my local and some others I visit or pass through were purely informative for anyone in or visiting Greater Manchester.

Edited by pluralist (Sun 12-Mar-23 22:16:28)

We have 5G in town here and I use it when I am there.

If I stand on one leg with my phone out of the window I can get it here but its all irrelevant really as I am connected to wifi for data and calls when I am at home.

My phone and Home Broadband are both Three . Purely on cost grounds.

If 5G were important to me I would be quite upset as there is no other 5G for miles around, and the Three 5G is only available upstairs at the front of the house . As I've said a few times on here, July lets me upgrade the router to 5G-capable. Probably at lower cost than the present price. Even that upgrade rather than a reduction in the ongoing monthly price would be purely for interest

My "satnav" phone is on the lowest EE 4G PAYG tariff, and given the EE unused data carryover is more than sufficient for my satnav purposes.

See the OP's question in the Subject.

I think the issue is that the phone will always try to use the "best" signal.

Often that means it tries to use a poor 5G signal (too far away etc) that gives a perception that the performance is poor.

I keep getting messages from O2 regarding engineering works in the area, so hopefully they are increasing capacity whilst upgrading the masts for 5G.

In reply to a post by Philce:

I think the issue is that the phone will always try to use the "best" signal.

and that is how mobile phones work as they are designed to be used when moving, so they are constantly moving from frequency to frequency and technology to technology, all the networks have lots of different frequencies in use at the same time.

Often that means it tries to use a poor 5G signal (too far away etc) that gives a perception that the performance is poor.

It can, but it can often be the 5G indicator is showing and you are actually on a 4G mast. The 5G indicator showing is often untrue.

I keep getting messages from O2 regarding engineering works in the area, so hopefully they are increasing capacity whilst upgrading the masts for 5G.

And can also be increasing capacity on 4G. according to their annual reports O2 has the most customers on a physical network (O2, Three, EE, Vodafone) including all the MVNOs they host (including Sky, and Tesco).

In reply to a post by pluralist:

See the OP's question in the Subject.

To answer this specific question about "Is 5G a con", I would say no I think its badly been implemented across the UK by all providers and also the way in which the bandwidth slices have been sold hasn't helped.

In reply to a post by dect:

To answer this specific question about "Is 5G a con", I would say no I think its badly been implemented across the UK by all providers and also the way in which the bandwidth slices have been sold hasn't helped.

Well that was a few pages back. This thread has gone down some sub paths.

In the UK 5G is not a con, as its increased capacity. Is it needed in 2023 in the majority of places yet? No... there is a lot of capacity plans available on 4G. Do all networks roll out all the capacity at the same time? No... Outside my place I get 10Mbps on O2, 35 Mbps on Three and Vodafone and 200 Mbps on EE. Each network does its own thing.

The spectrum isn't sold, its licensed, and the licences aren't forever. The Ofcom approach has been to run auctions, the networks do sealed bids for the spectrum slices they want. Is this in alignment with number of customers per network... no, but is it 'fair' ... probably!

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by dect:

To answer this specific question about "Is 5G a con", I would say no I think its badly been implemented across the UK by all providers and also the way in which the bandwidth slices have been sold hasn't helped.

Well that was a few pages back.

Its still valid even if its a day late and a dollar short

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The spectrum isn't sold, its licensed, and the licences aren't forever.

Sorry I realised I said sold rather than licensed and should have corrected it.

Edited by deleted (Mon 13-Mar-23 17:05:32)