T-Mobile 5G UC Reaches 200 Million People: What Does That Mean For Me?
T-Mobile USA revealed a 5G milestone this week as they've reached 200 million people with their "5G Ultra Capacity" service. This is T-Mobile's fastest-available 5G coverage, and it's effectively unique to this carrier. You might have already seen a "5G" logo appear on your T-Mobile smartphone, but now you'll (quite possibly) see the company's 5G UC logo in some places, too.
T-Mobile 5G "Extended Range"
If you've had 4G coverage with a T-Mobile smartphone for the past few years, and just saw your phone move to 5G recently, you probably didn't notice any major change in data speed. This isn't particularly shocking, since the slowest 5G speeds aren't particularly faster than the fastest 4G.
The first wave of 5G coverage from T-Mobile USA should improve download and upload speeds a tiny bit. Certainly nothing as world-shattering as the speed increases we saw when we went from 3G to 4G, but still. This first wave was called T-Mobile's Extended Range 5G. This is the slowest 5G with the widest coverage (over 308 million people across 1.7 million square miles, according to T-Mobile) running on the company's 600 MHz 5G bands.
T-Mobile 5G UC (Ultra Capacity)
T-Mobile USA has 5G coverage branded "Ultra Capacity." You'll see "5G UC" branding appear on your smartphone if your phone is accessing this network, assuming your phone has the right logo to display said network. The T-Mobile 5G UC network works with 2.5 GHz and 24/28/39 GHz bands.
If we take a peek at some simple infographics about 5G, we see the differences between the several different sorts of 5G coverage. T-Mobile is aiming to cover multiple layers, from the slowest and most widely available 5G to the fastest and most short-range 5G.
The T-Mobile 5G UC branding covers multiple layers, and exists side-by-side with T-Mobile 5G Extended Range.
5G Definitions:
• Low-band: Under 1 Ghz
• Mid-band: 3.6-6 Ghz (Under 6Ghz is Sub-6)
• High-band: 24-40 Ghz (Over 24Ghz is mmWave or UW or Ultra Wideband)
So with T-Mobile 5G Extended Range you have a bit of low-band 5G (600 Mhz), and T-Mobile UC includes 2.5 GHz and 24/28/39 GHz bands. So they're attempting to cover a collection of bands so as to have as much 5G-brand coverage in the USA as possible.
At the moment, T-Mobile is doing a rather decent job of making it look and feel like they're winning the 5G war by having a significant amount of band coverage in low, mid, and high-band 5G. The speed increase you'll see on your phone won't likely be as game-changing as it was when you moved from 3G to 4G, but it'll certainly be enough for mobile carriers to continue to get super hyped up about making sure you're expecting to absolutely need a 5G-capable smartphone as soon as possible.