[protocolture]

5G's trick is MIMO. Basically just using more channel space for more data. In some places that means 3G/4G spectrum + 24GHz + 60GHz. And responding when you close a door and the 60GHz goes away. In some parts of the world where licensing worked out differently, it might just be a couple chunks of old 4G spectrum. Its not a monolith.

[hocuspocus]

In most places it's 2G/3G/4G bands, either repurposed or through dynamic spectrum sharing, plus sub-6 bands.

mmWave is a flop.

[protocolture]

Its a flop in this circumstance for sure.

I used to have some early engineering material outlining what had been approved for use in each country and 24GHz was pretty damn common. Could be that changed I havent kept up.

I do know in Australia we have sweet FA and 5G isnt very interesting at all.

[marzullo]

mmWave is amazing in any kind of packed arena/stadium. Never was able to even use my phone at a basic level before, now can get low latency gigabit+ speeds which is insane.

[hocuspocus]

In practice sub-6 bands are just good enough in most scenarios. We're 5+ years into mmWave deployments in the US and there's still very little interest or regulatory push worldwide.

For instance it's completely stalled in South Korea which has one of the highest 5G coverage and market penetration. In Japan I found articles from 2023 claiming the mmWave coverage was "0.01%" then, I don't know if it expanded in the meantime. In Europe there's virtually zero production deployments or devices sold with the compatible modem/antennas. While there are small deployments in Australian cities, Apple doesn't bother selling compatible models. Etc.