Why Your 5G Phone Still Feels Like 4G

I’ve been testing 5G across three major US carriers for six months. Want to know the punchline? Most of the time, I can’t tell the difference from 4G.

The carriers will hate me for saying this, but it’s true. Yeah, occasionally I’ll hit a speed test that makes me gasp—982 Mbps download in downtown Seattle, 1.2 Gbps near a Verizon mmWave node in Manhattan. Incredible numbers. Completely useless in practice.

Because here’s the thing nobody mentions in those glossy 5G ads: ultra-fast mmWave 5G has the range of a bluetooth speaker. Walk behind a tree? Connection drops. Go indoors? Back to 4G. The “5G” icon stays lit on your phone, but you’re actually on what T-Mobile calls “5G nationwide”—which is really just 4G with marketing.

I talked to a network engineer at AT&T (off the record, obviously). He laughed when I brought this up. “We call it 5GE internally. Five Gee… Eventually.”

The real 5G buildout is happening in places you’d never expect. I visited a Siemens manufacturing plant in Ohio where they’ve deployed a private 5G network for robotic assembly lines. Millisecond latency, dedicated spectrum, actually transformative. But that’s industrial 5G, not the consumer thing your carrier is selling.

Rural deployment is even messier. I drove through Montana last month. Signs everywhere: “Now with 5G!” My phone showed five bars of 5G. Speed test? 18 Mbps. My home Wi-Fi from 2019 is faster.

The dirty secret is that carriers are still figuring out spectrum allocation. They bought C-band licenses for tens of billions of dollars and are racing to build out before investors lose patience. Mid-band 5G—the sweet spot that balances speed and range—is slowly rolling out. By 2025, it might actually live up to the hype.

For now? Your 5G phone is mostly a 4G phone that cost $200 more.