New 5G Coverage & Maps

All 4 top carriers are now offering what they consider "5G".  In this horse race, Sprint users report the most usable mobile 5G coverage.  We'll credit their use of "mid-band" frequencies (2.5 GHz) for coverage.  The other 3 carriers are still rolling out their 5G on "high" frequencies (39 GHz) which have very little range but plenty of capacity.

The corresponding coverage maps seem to reflect this difference, if they show any coverage.  Sprint shows very useful and somewhat optimistic maps and T-Mobile is showing very detailed if not broad-ranging maps.  Those 2 will also have a big re-shuffle of 5G coverage if their proposed merger is approved.  So far, so good.  Other carriers have not yet shared their big reveal. We'll follow what we know on our 5G Coverage Maps page.

Related: 5G is Not Ready for Prime Time

Another 5G player may surface as Dish Network has offered to purchase any spectrum and wireless assets that will need to be divested to secure federal approval of the T-Mobile - Sprint merger.  Dish has indicated that all of their own coverage on any new spectrum will be 5G.  They may well end up with enough spectrum to act as a new fourth wireless player in the US market, and that spectrum is located in favorable frequency bands.  We have introduced their coverage assets on our new Dish Wireless coverage page.