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[CyberPanda]

The next couple of years will see the rollout of 5G cellular phone networks from companies like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile, and it sounds like 5G smartphone plans might not be priced in the same way as current 4G LTE plans.

During today's AT&T earnings call, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said (via The Verge) that he believes the pricing for 5G connectivity could resemble home broadband pricing with different prices for different speed tiers rather than one set price for the fastest connectivity available.

"I will be very surprised if, as we move into wireless, the pricing regime in wireless doesn't look something like the pricing regime you see in fixed line. If you can offer a gig speed, there are some customers that are willing to pay a premium for 500 meg to a gig speed, and so forth. So I expect that to be the case. We're two to three years away from seeing that play out."

5G networks are still in the early days, so how pricing will ultimately work out remains to be seen. It's also not clear how variable pricing for tiered speeds would work given the fact that 5G connections speeds are going to vary depending on whether you're in a city or in a more rural area.

The fastest 5G speeds, available through mmWave technology, will be limited to urban areas. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg this week explained that millimeter wave high-frequency spectrum isn't suitable for widespread coverage, a sentiment shared by T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray, who wrote a blog post on the subject earlier this week.

Some of this is physics - millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum has great potential in terms of speed and capacity, but it doesn't travel far from the cell site and doesn't penetrate materials at all. It will never materially scale beyond small pockets of 5G hotspots in dense urban environments.

AT&T has launched its 5G network in a handful of markets across the United States, and other carriers, like Verizon, have also been starting their 5G network rollouts.

There are few smartphones that are able to take advantage of 5G networks at the current time, but additional 5G smartphones are expected later in 2019.

Rumors suggest Apple's first 5G iPhone will come out in 2020, when 5G networks are more mature and more widely available. Apple is planning to use chips from Qualcomm and perhaps Samsung now that Intel is out of the 5G smartphone modem chip business.

AT&T CEO Believes 5G Phone Plans Could Be Tiered and Priced on Data Speed

The next couple of years will see the rollout of 5G cellular phone networks from companies like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile, and it...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Texas Pride]

They don't even have real 5G yet and already looking for ways to fuck people over.

 

[Tesseract]

if this is a measure to make the infrastructure scale before 2030, that's fine

someone has to pay for it, sure as shit ain't gonna be me

i'm all about that LTE life homeys

 

[Luffytubby]

We will see how much backlash this gets. People are fighting 5G on so many fronts- From the effects on the environments to health hazards and the fact that the shorter wavelengths will require masts at every city block. Big cities will be the first to get it, but I wouldn't be surprised if 5-10 years from now, Rural America won't have the infrastructure in many places.

 

[SpartanN92]

It makes sense that they would price based off speed.
It’s not like they will still have 2gb, 4gb, 8gb etc plans. It will all be unlimited, they will need a way to tier the pricing somehow.

 

[greyshark]

They already price their unlimited plans based off of speed now (at least through throttling). The majority of my data consumption on my phone is through WiFi, I don’t see myself signing up for this.

 

[ConnorDuffy1977]

They don't even have real 5G yet and already looking for ways to fuck people over.

So it will be like broadband is currently? How is this fucking people over?

 

[epicnemesis]

At this point I’d rather not have 5g. Don’t need it, LTE is more than enough for mobile data and doesn’t potentially fuck up birds or whatever. 5G feels half baked. A tower on every block is not a solution guys, go back to the drawing board. We can wait.

 

[Lucumo]

They don't even have real 5G yet and already looking for ways to fuck people over.

Well, they are already screwing people over by labelling stuff as "5G" (and selling it), even though it's slower than Verizon's and T-Mobile's 4G.

 

[Texas Pride]

So it will be like broadband is currently? How is this fucking people over?

Because you're a fool to believe ATT regarding speeds. Especially given how dishonest they've been regarding 5G already.

 

[Texas Pride]

Well, they are already screwing people over by labelling stuff as "5G" (and selling it), even though it's slower than Verizon's and T-Mobile's 4G.

That's the main reason for my original comment. They've already proven to be liars when it comes to 5G. Fucking people over on price is the next logical step.

 

[ConnorDuffy1977]

Because you're a fool to believe ATT regarding speeds. Especially given how dishonest they've been regarding 5G already.

The speed I pay for is the speed I get. Recently switched to fiber and it's been great.

 

[godhandiscen]

Ugh, fuck speed tiers pricing. There is just not enough regulation forcing the ISP's to provide the speeds they advertise.

I currently get on average 60% of the speed I pay for.