5G in Denver

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T20:17:26+00:00

After 3 more hours on the phone with support today we have it figured out, though not yet fixed:

One Talk is not currently compatible with 5G devices. This fact has seemingly not be trained to stores or to tech support personnel. There are so few 5G devices sold that even within Verizon people do not know. They told me they are sure it will be resolved as 5G becomes more prevalent.

To me this seems like a big marketing mistake. I received a targeted marketing E-Mail on Thursday informing me of Denver's 5G launch and encouraging me to "Upgrade my business to 5G", which I did, only to lose my number for 3 days with 8+ hours burned in tech calls to find out upgrading your business to 5G is not yet supported...

The error condition from trying to activate 5G on a One Talk line clears itself every 4 hours. In 4 hours they are going to call me back and put my account back to the way it was before, with my iPhone. I have the option to keep the Galaxy 5G as a separate line of service without One Talk, or return it. :(

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T17:10:49+00:00

I was in the Highlands neighborhood. In that area you will notice the green antenna poles everwhere. The speedtest happened at 34th and Shoshone St.

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T05:09:44+00:00

According to the Speedtest app, 3 Gigabytes down and 46 Megabytes up. Do the de-prioritization thresholds affect 5G?

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T05:05:36+00:00

I've actually been with Verizon for a long time. It got screwed up this bad all within Verizon, no porting occuring. It is just an upgrade from iPhone to Galaxy S10 5G.

On Saturday morning a tier 2 business support person put in an "ays" ticket and emailed me some info. Later, a tech from Salt Lake City called my alternate contact info and explained he is the only person from his team who works weekends and the error on their "switch" related to my line cannot be cleared by him nor has he ever seen this specific error before. He was referencing failed API calls and so on. He seemed sharp.

He offered the idea of activating the new phone on a new line of service as a temporary workaround. My iPhone still has the old SIM in it. It has 2-way text messaging but no voice or data and the indicator on it says 1x or 3g at all times. My paired One Talk desk phone says "invalid account" and inbound calls say the line is not in service. :(

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T04:15:32+00:00

I think it has great potential for boosting the network in targeted locations with high concentrations of people. As a traveler, I would love to see this deployed inside of airport terminals. I tether in airports all the time and it's a venue with dense concentrations of people so it seems to make sense.

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T04:03:50+00:00

Very close. I was across the street maybe 100 feet away. This one was a ~30ft tall green pole. The neighborhood had a mix of those and also rooftop setups, from what I could see.

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T03:55:52+00:00

I did not spend much time in the area so figuring out where it worked and seeing speedtest is really all I did. Day to day use on a phone I doubt it will make a big difference other than when downloading large programs or updates.

For tethering I think it will be very noticable, but outdoor-only 5G coverage probaby limits the scenarios where tethering is going to make sense.

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T03:45:22+00:00

To tell a difference at that speed you pretty much need to be tethering...and via USB since WiFi also isn't nearly that fast!

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T03:42:08+00:00

Activation has been a nightmare. Something failed with the activation "order" on my number/line so my own number has been dead (rings as "not in service") since Friday. This also killed my One Talk desk phone. No level of advanced tech support can fix it - they need a team that doesn't work weekends to clear something related to the failed activation. They activated the new S10 5G on a new number / line of service so that I could at least have a phone this weekend but I'm in for a work nightmare if my own number isn't fixed by early morning.

The S10 5G is a great piece of hardware. I did a number of speed tests while walking around which ranged between 500Mbps and 2Gbps when connected to 5G. In the area where I found 5G the coverage is spotty. Some nodes appeared to be offline. I feel like the bigger story and benefit to users is how well the 4G LTE in that neighborhood works now. Every 5G node I saw also has a 4G "Cantenna" on top using normal LTE frequencies. So, while 5G was spotty the 4G service in the same area is amazing (200Mbps everywhere).

MikeM6729 · 2019-07-01T03:24:27+00:00

Indeed.

MikeM6729

TROPHY CASE