5G arrives in SP this Thursday; see how it will work

5G will work in São Paulo from this Thursday (4), after a task force of telephone operators last week to convince Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) to release the signal. The city is the fourth capital to receive the technology in the country, after Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and João Pessoa.

in which neighborhoods will there be 5G signal?

Operators did not disclose the list of neighborhoods in which 5G will work. According to Anatel, the start of 5G operation in the city should count on the activation of 892 antennas, which represents about 20% of the stations installed in the city. At first, the agency expects coverage of the same proportion in the capital.

Anatel provided the map below, with the location of the antennas that will be activated for 5G.

The coverage is concentrated in the expanded center, between the Tietê and Pinheiros marginals, and also covers a part of the west zone and the beginning of the south zone. According to the regulatory agency, the area with the highest concentration of antennas is also where there is a greater concentration of business buildings, employment centers and families with greater purchasing power.​

Do I need to change chips?

Although the launch is close, operators are still not clear about the need to change the cell phone chip to access the technology.

While TIM and Claro said they do not require the exchange, Vivo said replacement is necessary, but did not inform the price. According to Claro, you only need to be within the coverage area and have a device compatible with the new technology.

Do I need to change plans?

The telecoms also did not say whether they will have exclusive data plans for 5G. Vivo’s website, for example, informs that all the plans offered grant access to the new generation.

The professor and coordinator of the Center for Technology and Society at FGV Direito Rio Luca Belli points out, however, that a minimum plan for using 5G should be 100 GB, whose cost today is around R$400.

The expectation is that national 5G will follow international prices until the popularization of the service brings down the value of chips and devices – the main barriers to access.

My phone already showed the 5G icon. What’s the difference?

The 5G available before this Thursday (4) in São Paulo is called 5G DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing) or NSA (non-standalone). The connection is considered “impure” because it operates in the same frequency band as 4G (2.3 GHz), which limits its performance.

The “pure” version, or standalone, has a band dedicated only to it, at 3.5 GHz. In a test carried out by Sheetimpure 5G failed to outperform 4G.

In Brasília, where the network has been available since the beginning of July, the service remains unstable and the promised speeds fluctuate and often match those of 4G due to the lack of coverage in the capital.

Which cell phones are compatible?

See the list of the main devices compatible with the connection:

Apple:

• iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone SE 2022

Samsung:

• Galaxy A73 5G
• Galaxy A52 5G, Galaxy A52s 5G, Galaxy A53 5G
• Galaxy A32 5G, Galaxy A33 5G
• Galaxy A22 5G
• Galaxy M52 5G, Galaxy M53 5G
• Galaxy M23 5G
• Galaxy Note 20 5G, Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G

• Galaxy S20 FE 5G

• Galaxy S21 FE 5G, Galaxy S21 5G, Galaxy S21+ 5G, Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G

• Galaxy S22, 5G, Galaxy S22+ 5G, Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G

• Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G
• Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G, Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G

Motorola:

• Moto G50 5G, Moto G71
• Moto G100 5G, Moto G200 5G
• Moto G 5G, Moto G 5G Plus
• Motorola Edge 20 Lite, Motorola Edge 20, Motorola Edge 20 Pro

Others:

• Mi 10T, Mi 10T Pro
• Mi 11
• POCO F3, POCO M3 Pro, POCO X4 Pro 5G
• Redmi Note 10 5G, Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
• Zenfone 7, Zenfone 8, Zenfone 8 Flip
• TCL 20 Pro 5G
• Infinix Zero 5G
• Nokia G50

What is 5G and what can it do?

5G is the next generation of mobile internet connection, the one used in cell phones and other wireless devices. The technology offers higher speeds for downloading and sending files and lower latency for transmitting data in real time.

For the average consumer, 4G already serves entertainment, work and education activities well. But 5G is associated with increased productivity in industry, agribusiness, healthcare and other sectors. Therefore, the promised higher speeds and minimal latency are to be expected.

The speed of pure 5G reaches, on average, 1Gbps (Gigabit per second), which is ten times higher than the average of 4G. For example, to download a 5GB file (a high definition movie) on pure 5G, you would have to wait 42 seconds. And this connection can reach up to 20 Gbps.

By 2027, the year in which technology should become dominant, according to Ericsson’s projections, there will be 4.4 billion 5G users worldwide. By the end of this year, it should reach 1 billion.

Just having the equipment to have full access to 5G?

Access to technology should not be quickly disseminated, warns Luca Belli, professor and coordinator of the Center for Technology and Society at FGV Direito Rio

“To ‘reach’, 5G needs a high density of 5G stations to be installed and such stations to be connected by a fiber network. These stations or cells basically act as routers that must be extremely close to the user for access to the 5G network”, he wrote in an article in Sheet.

Official planning predicts that 5G will reach all Brazilian cities – or at least the neighborhoods where the investment is most profitable – “by 2029”.

Why should the cost of using 5G be high?

According to Professor Luca Belli, from FGV, although operators have not revealed the prices of mobile internet plans to use 5G, the increase in the volume of data consumed should produce higher bills for users.

“The plans practiced until today by the operators are not based on the type of technology, but by data consumption. In other words, you do not pay for 3G, 4G or 5G plans, but pay based on how much data you consume”, describes Belli.

If with 5G it is possible to download a 20 GB video in 20 seconds, while with 4G it would take half an hour, a consumer who uses this speed to download three videos will spend triple the data. Currently, the cost of consuming 20 GB is around R$60, regardless of the technology used and the time required.

That is, whoever downloads 20 GB may have a cost of R$ 60, regardless of speed, and whoever downloads 60 GB will have triple the cost, unless the amount charged for the GB drops radically, exemplifies the professor.

5G should even reach 1Gbps (Gigabit per second) in Brazil

Luca Belli, from FGV, warns that today there is a difference in the country between the ideal of technological performance and reality.

4G reaches speeds of 100 MBps in the laboratory, but the average speed in the Brazilian mobile connection is less than 20 MBps, or about 20% of the potential.

“Considering the wide range of challenges, it seems prudent to think that, at least “until 2029″, the average speed of 5G will be no more than 20% of the declared maximum.”

What other impacts can 5G have?

The arrival of 5G should also move the job market in Brazil by generating jobs and demanding new professional skills. The technology and telecommunications sectors will be the most affected.

Luca Belli, however, argues that there can be high social costs without planning that prepares exits for workers in automated factories (who will be replaced by 5G-connected robots), for example, or for farm workers, who will be replaced by autonomous tractors, or for truck drivers, which will give way to self-piloted electric trucks.

!In China and South Korea, which are world leaders in 5G and automation, this process is being studied and a systemic change, including to prepare and reconvert the workforce, has been planned for years. China introduced programming as a compulsory subject in elementary school three years ago,” writes Belli.

In the current Brazilian context, unfortunately, there are many advertisements, but few strategies. The only thing that can be said about the arrival of 5G in Brazil at this moment is that, considering the existing ‘planning’, the disruptive potential of this excellent technology will not generate universally distributed benefits, and may even exacerbate existing digital inequalities. “