[LINK] Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says

[Kim Holburn]

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/millimeter-wave-5g-will-never-scale-beyond-dense-urban-areas-t-mobile-says/

> T-Mobile CTO says 5G's high-frequency spectrum won't cover rural America.

> While all four major nationwide carriers in the United States have overhyped 5G to varying degrees, T-Mobile today made a notable admission about 5G's key limitation. T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray wrote in a blog post that millimeter-wave spectrum used for 5G "will never materially scale beyond small pockets of 5G hotspots in dense urban environments." That would seem to rule out the possibility of 5G's fastest speeds reaching rural areas or perhaps even suburbs.
> 
> Ray made his point with this GIF, apparently showing that millimeter-wave frequencies are immediately blocked by a door closing halfway while the lower 600MHz signal is unaffected


> Millimeter waves generally haven't been used in cellular networks because they don't travel far and are easily blocked by walls and other obstacles. This has led us to wonder how extensive higher-speed 5G deployments will be outside major cities, and now T-Mobile's top technology official is saying explicitly that millimeter-wave 5G deployments will just be for "small pockets" of highly populated areas.

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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