Andrew Orr
AT&T is rolling out a new 5G midband network, but for Apple fans, only the newly-announced iPhone 14 will be able to use it.
Earlier in 2022, AT&T said that that it was working to include 5G devices to use its new 3.45GHz midband 5G network. But, in reality, Apple 5G devices released before 2022 will be locked out from AT&T's new spectrum purchase, and it's not from a lack of compatible hardware.
AT&T's original promise included iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, but now a report from CNET says only the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max will support it.
It's not fully clear why this is the case. The modems in Apple's iPhone going back to the iPhone 12 support the frequencies in question.
AT&T and Dish won the US Federal Communications Commission's auction for the expanded spectrum. The auction cost AT&T $9.1 billion for the right to include this midband frequency on its network.
Three frequency bands comprise 5G: low-band, mid-band, and high-speed mmWave. The midband spectrum offers the best of speed and range, which is in part what AT&T purchased at the auction. There isn't a specific timeline on when AT&T's midband will roll out to consumers, but Chris Sambar, AT&T's executive vice president, said it will arrive by the end of 2022.
Apple specifically mentions 5G (Sub-6GHz and mmWave) in the product lines for iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and iPhone 14. Sub-6Ghz refers to frequencies below six gigahertz, commonly referring to data transmission on bands between 3.3 GHz and 4.2 GHz, which include this new midband.
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10 Comments
Glad I dumped AT&T after 20+ years for T-Mobile. Unlimited service for half the price and no wondering each month how much the taxes and fees will add up to. 5G UltraCapacity is super!
Here in Orange County, CA, I get regular AT&T 5G, not their 5G+ faster stuff. After reading the recent articles about how great T-Mobile has gotten, and knowing their 5G UC is supposed to be amazing, I tried the new 90 day test drive last week. My plain old AT&T 5G is 150mbps, T-Mobiles 5G UC was 41mbps. The upstream was abysmal, coming in at 2Mbps on T-Mobile vs 24mbps on AT&T. I have tested this in many areas around here and the results are similar. You really do get what you pay for. Very excited about this even faster midband and love that it will be restricted to only the latest devices.
When they limit device model availability I expect it’s system capacity issues. keep the volume down so they can deliver performance over a limited hardware setup.
I’m using Verizon’s 5G UW and it’s amazing. I ran the 30-day T-mobile trial and was equally impressed.