# 5G advantage?



## Atavar (Aug 11, 2018)

Well, I just ordered a new phone since Verizon offered me $800 to trade my old phone. The new plan includes Hulu and Disney, both of which I pay for now so canceling those covers the change to my plan cost. 
The new plan also ups my hotspot to 50Gb which is good since I run Alexa on an Echo in the car for music. 
This will be my first 5G phone. Do you see any improvement with the faster 5G data?


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## Seaside_Slider (9 mo ago)

No, but you will notice a huge increase in battery drain. I have 5G disabled on my phone as it brings nothing to the party but the increased battery drain.


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## Kodyhead (May 26, 2015)

I upgraded the plan but not the phone.

When I went through the 3g to 4g upgrade it seemed like it was worse in the areas that switches back and forth from 3g to 4g which drained the battery the most. 

But I also had at the time a HTC phone which in Chinese means terrible phone battery


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## og bunky (8 mo ago)

so far, nothing positive to note.

especially not while ubering. I find that it is noticeably less reliable than my old 4G LTE phone in the areas that I drive in.

in particular, while it is trying to decide whether to stay on week 5G or switch to 4g, I often times lose data signal and I am sure that's detrimental for things like uber.

even when it does settle on 4g, the performance seems noticeably subpar to almost unusable, but this might be a specific issue related to my specific phone hardware, not sure.. 

one example is near the serramonte/junipero serra area in Daly City, for you SF drivers who might know what I'm talking about, the phone is nearly useless and doing pickups in that area is nearly impossible because the data signal is just enough to register but completely and utterly useless. oftentimes I will receive pings and be able to accept them, but have extreme extreme difficulty starting the ride or doing anything useful and causes headaches. I never had that issue with my old Samsung Galaxy a50.

can't even go offline without a major struggle in the area.


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## _Tron_ (Feb 9, 2020)

Verizon has botched the upgrade in my locale so badly that neither 4G or 5G work worth a damn. I had to switch one of my phones to AT&T.


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## og bunky (8 mo ago)

ive been looking for a network switcher widget that can easily switch btwn 4g and 5g without going back an forth into settings, for when im ubering and not

so far I'm convinced that the 4g antenna or other hardware on my phone is inferior to the one on my last phone...as in, putting it in 4g only mode wont help with performance and wont get me the same level of reliability as i had with my last 4g phone

i might have to see if there's a return policy on verizon phones and return my current galaxy s20fe if there is, it's been getting ridiculous in some areas


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## Ted Fink (Mar 19, 2018)

Atavar said:


> Well, I just ordered a new phone since Verizon offered me $800 to trade my old phone. The new plan includes Hulu and Disney, both of which I pay for now so canceling those covers the change to my plan cost.
> The new plan also ups my hotspot to 50Gb which is good since I run Alexa on an Echo in the car for music.
> This will be my first 5G phone. Do you see any improvement with the faster 5G data?


I'm not in a 5g area so I can't answer your question but your post made me think of a question for you...

Does using hotspot on your phone make your connection to uber iffy in weak signal areas? I've thought about doing this but don't want to take the risk of missing pings!

Thanks in advance!


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## Atavar (Aug 11, 2018)

I use hotspot often and have not noticed I’ll effects. I run an Alexa (Echo Auto) in the car for pax amusement.


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## Ted Fink (Mar 19, 2018)

Atavar said:


> I use hotspot often and have not noticed I’ll effects. I run an Alexa (Echo Auto) in the car for pax amusement.


Do you have any weak signal areas? That's the part I'm concerned about. My market has one neighborhood that sucks donkey ass for signal. Hard to accept a ride there with nothing else running on the phone...


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## _Tron_ (Feb 9, 2020)

Ted Fink said:


> Do you have any weak signal areas? That's the part I'm concerned about. My market has one neighborhood that sucks donkey ass for signal. Hard to accept a ride there with nothing else running on the phone...


Is there any carrier there with good signal? I made that post about having two $100 phones with two different carriers. Made all the difference.


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## Atavar (Aug 11, 2018)

Ted Fink said:


> Do you have any weak signal areas? That's the part I'm concerned about. My market has one neighborhood that sucks donkey ass for signal. Hard to accept a ride there with nothing else running on the phone...


Make sure to disable the Wi-Fi on your phone. Your connectivity will suck as your phone tries to connect to hotspots and you will be at the mercy of random routers.


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## UberBastid (Oct 1, 2016)

I am no expert in the field.
But, just from experience ... it seems to me that it is strongly regional and local. 
I live in an area that is both suburban and very rural.
The city of Redding, in California is a town of about 100k. Cell service in town is strong. But, go ten miles out of town and you can be in a pretty remote area where only the 'best' service will be available. Go another ten miles and you need a booster of some kind. Go another ten ... you need a sat phone because you are nowhere.
IN MY AREA the best service, over all is Verizon. I could usually get a signal even up in the mountains of Shingletown, Oak Run; or far into the valley of Cottonwood. It is also the most expensive.
When I was in real estate (ten years ago) Verizon was a must have.
Now that I am more 'in town' I can (and do) save hundreds a month by going with Spectrum.
Works just fine ... most of the time. Good enough for me.

But, really, I don't think that there is a 'right' answer for everywhere.


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## Seaside_Slider (9 mo ago)

Atavar said:


> I use hotspot often and have not noticed I’ll effects. I run an Alexa (Echo Auto) in the car for pax amusement.


How would you know? You wouldn’t. It’s like drivers who think you can run Uber and Lyft on the same Apple device. You can’t, but they can’t know it.


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## Ted Fink (Mar 19, 2018)

Atavar said:


> Make sure to disable the Wi-Fi on your phone. Your connectivity will suck as your phone tries to connect to hotspots and you will be at the mercy of random routers.


Already aware of this. There's just one neighborhood that sucks on all carriers. It's a hilly wooded area with no towers.


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## og bunky (8 mo ago)

forcing it into 4g/lte mode (no 5g) doesn't give any better reliability, in fact makes it even worse because sometimes I will get like four+ signal strength bars yet still have completely useless data connection. sometimes it will work, but then again it would have worked anyways while switched to the 4G from 5G mode

it's been extremely frustrating, I wonder how many good pings I missed because of it

I will be getting my old phone repaired and returning this 5G piece of shit, if I'm still eligible. looks like a $50 restocking fee but I'm willing to pay it just to be able to have reliable service again


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## Uber's Guber (Oct 22, 2017)

Kodyhead said:


> But I also had at the time a HTC phone which in Chinese means terrible phone battery


是否確定？


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## UberBastid (Oct 1, 2016)

I agree with UberGoobers Asian girl friend.

.


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## E cabbie (Oct 24, 2017)

i upgraded my perfectly working iphone10 that i was using for the last 3 plus years in hope for the app like wayz will recalibrate itself faster while i m on the road but it's been a month and this new iphone 13 pro max with verizon 5g uw coverage is nothing but bs
bs bs bs.


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## Kodyhead (May 26, 2015)

If its available in your car, through onstar you can get unlimited wifi in the car for about $25 a month. It only happens for me in my market during high season but its through att and sometimes its nice to have a back up when Verizon fails or if your data is throttled because you are over on data


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## bobby747 (Dec 29, 2015)

sos 4g and 5g with the app's


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## Diamondraider (Mar 13, 2017)

Seaside_Slider said:


> How would you know? You wouldn’t. It’s like drivers who think you can run Uber and Lyft on the same Apple device. You can’t, but they can’t know it.


Why does running both apps on one device create a problem? I us a 2nd gen IPad Pro 12.9” and multi app. 

Sad realization is that my 5G phone gets pinged slower than the old ipad.


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## Seaside_Slider (9 mo ago)

Diamondraider said:


> Why does running both apps on one device create a problem? I us a 2nd gen IPad Pro 12.9” and multi app.
> 
> Sad realization is that my 5G phone gets pinged slower than the old ipad.


You think you do, but you don’t. Ever notice how when you’re “multi apping” when you bring the app in the background to the front, the map springs to where you are currently? Why do you think it does that? It does it because it is NOT running FT in the bg. iOS STILL isn’t capable of doing that. Android however, is.


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## Diamondraider (Mar 13, 2017)

Seaside_Slider said:


> You think you do, but you don’t. Ever notice how when you’re “multi apping” when you bring the app in the background to the front, the map springs to where you are currently? Why do you think it does that? It does it because it is NOT running FT in the bg. iOS STILL isn’t capable of doing that. Android however, is.


I run split screen and toggle Waze, a 3rd app. No lag. Minimal latency. Primarily connected to 4g lte


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## Diamondraider (Mar 13, 2017)

Seaside_Slider said:


> You think you do, but you don’t. Ever notice how when you’re “multi apping” when you bring the app in the background to the front, the map springs to where you are currently? Why do you think it does that? It does it because it is NOT running FT in the bg. iOS STILL isn’t capable of doing that. Android however, is.


In iOS you need to activate background app refresh permissions. It will suck up data but keep you current.


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## CarpeNoctem (Sep 12, 2018)

Got a 5G phone but it's not widely supported by my carrier so still effectively 4G.


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## Ambiguous (Jun 18, 2015)

I actually get less request with 5G. I turn it off.


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## Diamondraider (Mar 13, 2017)

Ambiguous said:


> I actually get less request with 5G. I turn it off.


Same here


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## CaptainToo (Dec 5, 2017)

I drive in Boston and am frequently in areas crowded with people. I bought a Samsung S21 last Fall specifically for the 5G capability. I wanted the 5G to resolve the frequent problem of poor or no data service on the 4G network, even while having five bars of signal quality. You wont get Uber requests if your phone doesn't have a data signal of at least 2-3 mbps. In many areas of Boston, the Verizon 4G service can often not deliver that service level, as it can't deal with the high data demands in crowded areas. The 5G service has resolved that problem, as 5G has 100 times the data capacity of 4G, I reliably get Uber requests regardless of crowds.

So 5G has been worth the cost to me.


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## ObeyTheNumbers (7 mo ago)

New 5G towers definitely a lot better, crowded 4G towers not so good. Uncrowded 4G works fine.

Doesn't matter who the carrier is really, depends upon how many customers they have on the 4G tower your trying to use. 

I have both Verizon 5G/4G and AT&T 4G


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