The activation of the 3.5 GHz version of 5G in São Paulo may have gone unnoticed for those who already used a mobile phone compatible with the new generation before this Thursday (4). But not because there was no difference.
The symbol displayed by the connected devices is the same as the 2.3 GHz version, considered “impure” and available since last year. Even with a timid debut, imperceptible to part of the users, the connection was in fact transformed: now it is up to ten times faster.
Pure 5G began operating in São Paulo this Thursday (4), nine months after the auction of the frequency bands. While the previous version offered a performance similar to 4G, or even worse, the current one shows progress and already delivers part of what the technology promises to offer in the coming years.
In a test carried out by Sheet this morning with a Samsung Galaxy A33 5G, the maximum download speed reached by Vivo’s 5G was 400 Mbps. From TIM, it was 200 Mbps.
This rate determines how long it takes data to download from the internet, such as a Spotify playlist and a Netflix movie. Before pure 5G was activated, at 0h this Thursday (4), the cell phone took about two minutes to download the movie “Hidden Agent” from the streaming. Upon activation, the time has been reduced to 18 seconds.
In the impure 5G test carried out in June, Vivo’s download speed reached 36.4 Mbps, which is even lower than the 100 Mbps expected for 4G. The increase to 400 Mbps, more than ten times, is significant.
The “pure” 5G promises an average speed of 1 Gbps (gigabit per second), ten times higher than the previous generation, and can reach 20 Gbps. That is, the speed observed in the tests is high, but it should improve.
Today, most popular fiber optic broadband internet plans deliver similar speeds, between 100 to 500 Mbps. The difference is that they are still a cheaper and more stable solution.
However, for the average consumer, 4G already serves entertainment, work and education activities well. 5G, associated with increased productivity in industry, agribusiness, healthcare and other sectors, requires, in addition to higher speeds, minimal latency.
Latency is the transfer time of a data packet from one point to another, crucial for activities that require precision, such as online gaming, cloud gaming and even remote surgery, one of the main bets of the new generation.
But in tests, latency still doesn’t look like a new generation. The lowest value achieved was 13 ms (milliseconds), while the technology’s promise is to deliver latency up to 1 ms.
Therefore, the number of nearby antennas is essential for the fifth generation telephony to work well, since the frequency used for the emission of the 5G signal, 3.5 GHz, has a shorter range. For coverage to be broad, of quality and with low latency, companies need to build, on average, ten times more antennas in relation to the park already installed in the country.
Today, 5G has a new face and is further away from 4G. But to reach the future promised by marketing campaigns at the time of the auction of the frequency bands, in November 2021, it still needs to improve.
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
