T-Mobile's upcoming OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren and its Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ will work on both T-Mobile's low-band and Sprint's mid-band 5G networks, the carrier confirmed today, giving them double or triple 4G speeds in major cities as well as enhanced speed in rural areas.

T-Mobile and Sprint are striving to merge right now, and if they do, they intend to merge their networks. The combined company will likely flip more of Sprint's mid-band spectrum over to 5G to further improve speeds, which we've seen hovering around 200Mbps on average in our tests. Currently, Sprint only uses 40-60MHz of its more than 100MHz of mid-band spectrum in its nine launch cities for 5G, while the rest is being used for 4G.

The carriers appear to be waiting for their merger to be cleared to announce any further rollouts of mid-band 5G. While the FCC has approved the merger, it's still waiting for a dozen state lawsuits to work through the process.

The new 5G phones do leave one technology out in the cold, but two out of three ain't bad. T-Mobile's millimeter-wave network, currently available in six cities, won't work on either of the new phones. Even though their Qualcomm X55 modems support millimeter-wave, the phones aren't equipped with the special millimeter-wave antenna modules needed to access the system.

The carrier also confirmed its existing Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, which works on its millimeter wave network in six cities, will work on the Sprint airwaves as well. But that one won't support the new, low-band 600MHz "nationwide" network.

Sprint's mid-band technology, in the short run, is more suitable for covering whole cities than shorter-range millimeter-wave, because it has the same range and uses the same cell sites as 4G. When I walk-tested Sprint and Verizon in New York, the coverage differences became clear—as did the speed differences. Mid-band has better coverage, but millimeter-wave is much faster.

T-Mobile has said it intends to cover 200 million Americans with its low-band, 600MHz 5G by the end of the year. Speed expectations there may have to stay humble, though, as the 30MHz of spectrum the carrier is using for 5G is only able to speed things up to about 180Mbps, plus whatever the 4G speeds are in the area. Folks with only the 600MHz 5G network available will probably see 5G speeds more like 50-100Mbps, although even those may be a revelation to rural users.

AT&T and Verizon will also implement low-band 5G in the near future, although they've been less clear on the details of how much spectrum they're using, and when and where they're launching it to the public. AT&T has a Galaxy Note 10+ model coming by the end of this year, which will support the low-band component of its network, but not millimeter-wave.

So far, there are no devices that cover all three types of 5G: low-band, mid-band and millimeter-wave. Qualcomm's X55 modem supports all three, but no manufacturer so far has successfully combined them. We're hoping to hear more about potential all-band 5G devices at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit in early December.

We continue to track 5G rollouts in our monthly Race to 5G feature.

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