There's A Recurring Theme With 5G, And It's Disappointment

from the not-all-that dept

Buried beneath the unrelenting hype surrounding fifth-generation (5G) wireless is a quiet but growing consensus: the technology is being over-hyped, and early incarnations were rushed to market in a way that prioritized marketing over substance. That's not to say that 5G won't be a good thing when it arrives at scale several years from now, but early offerings have been almost comical in their shortcomings. AT&T has repeatedly lied about 5G availability by pretending its 4G network is 5G. Verizon has repeatedly hyped early non-standard launches that, when reviewers actually got to take a look, were found to be barely available.

As carriers ramp up their marketing hype and promote 5G "launches" that aren't really full launches, that theme is only continuing. One ZDNet reporter recently wandered around Miami -- a "launched" T-Mobile 5G market -- only to find coverage was nonexistent and phone support was even worse. He ultimately concluded that T-mobile's definition of "nationwide 5G" most definitely leaves something to be desired:

"...this early hype -- on the part of carriers and phone manufacturers -- may, as so often happens, create a greater excitement than is currently warranted. Yes, T-Mobile wants to claim it has the first nationwide 5G. In the way that nationwide doesn't include the Bay Area. (Well, there are a lot of separatists here.) But when it's all switched on, will we be startled by the difference? We can but hype."

That same story is playing out in Chicago, where consumers are bombarded with endless ads for 5G, but show little real interest in paying a premium for faster speeds, when many haven't even fully utilized 4G's available bandwidth:

“Right now, I’d say 5G is in the hype cycle. Deployment is going to be slower than people think,” said Mohan Sawhney, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business. “Yeah, you’ll get faster Internet, but that’s not a breakthrough. ... I’d stay tuned beyond 2020."

It's not just America. In South Korea, users similarly say that while the added speed is nice, they're not all that impressed with the value proposition, especially if it involves overpaying for an even bigger phone with worse battery life (5G is currently quite the battery hog), or paying carriers even more for mobile data. For users already paying an arm and a leg for 4G speeds upwards of 30 Mbps, there's really not a whole lot of motivation to make the jump -- at least not right now. That's before you even get to patchy availability (let's just say there's a reason carriers are trying to obscure where 5G is actually available).

This is, of course, all a far cry from carrier 5G marketing, which routinely insists 5G is already largely everywhere (it's not), and will revolutionize everything from cancer treatment (not really) to the four day work week (nope).

Again, 5G is a good thing in that faster, more resilient, and easily managed networks are always good. And in five years from now, when phone development and 5G coverage has improved, there will certainly be ample benefits to the upgrade. But carriers continue to ignore the fact that over-marketing the standard prematurely may have the opposite impact they intended; associating 5G in the minds of many consumers with hype, empty promises, added costs, and little to actually show for it.

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Filed Under: 5g, hype, overhype, wireless

Companies: at&t, t-mobile, verizon