Monday, November 25, 2019

AT&T's Real 5G Coverage Maps

Right on the heels of Verizon Wireless making their 5G wireless coverage maps available, AT&T has released their own 5G maps.  As most of us have realized, AT&T's 5G maps that have been released so far have been for their "5G Evolution" coverage which is a combination of "super" 4G-LTE and various levels of broadband enhancements

Coming within the next few weeks, AT&T has promised to offer true 5G coverage in 5 markets that promises to be at lower frequency channels than the competition, providing much better coverage than the ultra-ultra high frequencies offered so far.


We are now showing these 5G coverage maps for those first five AT&T markets on our Cellular Maps web site, and as a bonus for those who read this news site, we're offering a sneak peek of all of AT&T true 5G coverage that should be available in February of 2020.  As before, we're expecting the big announcement by T-Mobile of their wide 5G coverage coming December 6th.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

New: 5G Interactive Maps

You may have heard that Verizon Wireless is finally providing zoom-in 5G coverage maps.  That means three of the top 4 major wireless carriers now offer a peek into their 5G coverage.  Our Cellular Maps Interactive Coverage Page now links you to those zoomable maps. Verizon's maps display "street-level" coverage which means they aren't claiming "in-building" coverage.  Of course, you can sign up for their "Home" 5G home wireless service as long as you can get a signal at your fixed location.  Ah, the beauty of such high frequency data connections.


We aren't sure why AT&T is still not providing 5G coverage maps.  Perhaps their "5G Evolution" provides a bit too varied a download rate in too many locations to claim a universal "5G Coverage" report.  In the meantime, we're waiting for T-Mobile's introduction of 5G coverage at 600 Mhz scheduled for December 6th. It could be a game-changer.

Friday, November 1, 2019

New Wireless Web Sites

Here it is the first of November.  We haven't posted any snippy comments for too long.  The time has been consumed by adding a few new wireless-themed web sites.  My vote was to reduce the number of sites but there were a few members who wanted to add new ones, primarily to upgrade some of the old sites.  Of course, when one area gets updated, another area gets postponed.

Let's start with what's new:

  • OZ WIRELESS:  I grabbed the name for another place to comment about wireless topics, but one of the crew said it would be a great place to report on the absolute cheapest wireless plans available.  So now, "OZ Knowz" how to get the cheapest deals in wireless, with or without your existing phone.
  • MOUNTAIN 5G: The crew thought we needed a place to maintain updates of the progress of 5G Wireless.  There have been a few visitors, but we expect 5G to be nothing more than a novelty until the 5G iPhone is released.  Even though it's not the first 5G phone, it should be the game-changer.  Our estimate is that it will be demonstrated next summer and sold after their September annoucement date.
  • WORLDWIDE WIRELESS ROAMING: This is an update of the ROAMING ZONE web site which is mostly used by people looking for roaming codes such as MNC, SID and the old PRL's.  The new site is focused on people who want to use wireless devices in foreign countries.  This is data collected by a handful of worldwide travelers and my own family.  I am often surprised how well our ideas work out.  However, you can learn from our mistakes.
  • WIRELESS BACK DOOR:  This is a re-write of the old CELLULAR BACK DOOR site which was originally based on what was known as "Back Door" voice mail numbers.  The voice mail numbers remain on the old site, but much of the newer wireless inside information has been expanded on the WIRELESS BACK DOOR site.

What has been eliminated?
  • We have dropped or consolidated sites that reported on worldwide wireless roaming (a new one was replaced by a newer one),  a couple of 5G miss-steps, and yet another cellular network review site.  We also sold the iconic MountainWireless.com site to a company that just wanted to disable the site to prevent confusion with their commercial namesake.  All of the old carrier information there still lives on MOUNTAIN WIRELESS.NET.
What's next?  We're mostly waiting on the next 5G shoe to drop.