Who Wants to Pay Extra for Faster 5G?

With 5G, carriers have done nothing short of promise the world. From blazing fast downloads to complete transformations of the healthcare and manufacturing industries, we’re told to believe that 5G is one of the most important technological advancements in our lifetime. That may be so, but we still have a ways to go before 5G can usher in true changes.

As we sit back and watch the carriers battle it out over spectrum and speeds and network coverage to get us there, one thing we expect to happen has surfaced this week. Verizon is the most recent to admit this, but they are going to ask us to pay for it all in some way. 5G ain’t cheap and carriers don’t do things for free, my friends.

As it currently stands, all of the carriers have deployed multiple 5G technologies, all of which offer different experiences. We know about everyone’s barely-better-than-4G nationwide 5G, as well as the super-fast-never-gonna-find-it 5G mmW. What’s getting more attention this week is the world of mid-band 5G. It’s such a big deal because it has the potential to really bring you a better wireless experience, it’s just going to take time for everyone to give it to us.

And that’s where we come to today’s poll question about paying for speeds. These carriers (I’d bet on all of them doing it) are going to charge you for tiers of 5G experiences. Verizon has confirmed that mid-band and mmW will fall under their “Premium” plans only. AT&T has most definitely separated its 5G technologies out into 5G and 5G+ as if they will follow Verizon’s lead. T-Mobile has tried to steer clear of this conversation for now, but again, we’re talking about US wireless carriers here and we know how they all operate.

If your carrier decides you need to pay a premium to get their best 5G network, on top of what you pay for 4G LTE, are you OK with that? Do you need 800Mbps downloads on your phone and ultra-low latency and a new statusbar icon?

 Loading ...