These are the cities with 5G or getting 5G in 2019

5G will revolutionize the way we use the Internet, bringing high-speed data everywhere, creating smart cities, and even replacing home Internet connections. That’s what the industry says, anyway. But when is 5G coming to your city?

What Is 5G?

Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are racing to get 5G on your phone and in your home. But what is 5G, and how is it different from 4G LTE?

5G is the wireless standard that will replace 4G LTE. It can theoretically reach speeds up to 10 gigabits per second, which is very fast—but 20 Gbps is the minimum target. To put things into perspective, that could theoretically be a hundred times as fast a 4G LTE connection, much faster than a ten megabits per second wired connection, and comparable to the speeds that people get with wired fiber connections.

And even though it’s a wireless connection, 5G has a much lower latency than the wired connection you have at home. According to the FCC, fiber connections tend to have a 17-millisecond delay, and cable Internet connections tend to have a latency of about 28 milliseconds. But AT&T claims that their 5G connections have a delay between 9 and 12 milliseconds. That shortened delay time makes streaming, downloading, gaming, and video chatting much more reliable.

RELATED: What Is 5G, and How Fast Will It Be?

What Cities Already Have 5G?

AT&T is blue, T-Mobile is magenta, and Verizon is red. MapCustomizer

Service providers have been testing 5G in the real world to see how it works. Plus, they’re racing to get your money. As a result, there are already some cities that have 5G connections. If you happen to live in one of these cities, you’ll want to keep in mind that you can’t really use mobile 5G connections without a compatible phone, so you’ll have to wait a few months before 5G products start hitting the market.

These US cities have 5G right now, as of January 17, 2019:

Verizon (Home internet service):

• Los Angeles, CA
• Sacramento, CA
• Indianapolis, IN
• Houston, TX

AT&T:

• Jacksonville, FL
• Atlanta, GA
• Indianapolis, IN
• Louisville, KY
• New Orleans, LA
• Charlotte, NC
• Raleigh, NC
• Oklahoma City, OK
• Dallas, TX
• Houston, TX
• San Antonio, TX
• Waco, TX

T-Mobile:

• Los Angeles, CA
• Las Vegas, NV
• New York, NY
• Dallas, TX
• Claimed that they’d bring 5G to 26 other unspecified cities in 2018.

Sprint:

• Sprint is set to merge with T-Mobile. They’ve been helping T-Mobile build their 5G network.

Which Cities Will Get 5G in 2019?

AT&T is blue, Sprint is yellow, and Verizon is red. 

Nationwide coverage won’t be arriving in 2019, but all the big US cellular carriers have announced plans to roll out 5G in more cities this year.

These cities will get 5G sometime in 2019, according to the cellular carriers:

AT&T:

• San Jose, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• San Diego, CA
• Orlando, FL
• Las Vegas, NV
• Nashville, TN
• San Antonio, TX
• Plans to have nationwide coverage by 2020.

Verizon: (These aren’t officially confirmed, but Verizon ran trial 5G networks in the following cities and has already launched 5G service in other cities it ran trial networks in, so they’re our best guess.)

• Denver, CO
• Washington D.C.
• Miami, FL
• Atlanta, GA
• Brockton, MA
• Ann Arbor, M
• Bernardsville, NJ
• Dallas, TX
• Seattle, WA

T-Mobile:

• Plans to provide coverage to 2/3 of America by 2021, but hasn’t specified which cities will have T-Mobile 5G in 2019. Since they’re set to merge with Sprint, they’ll probably gain all of the 5G networks that Sprint is building in 2019.

Sprint:

• Phoenix, AZ
• Los Angeles, CA
• Washington D.C.
• Atlanta, GA
• Chicago, IL
• Kansas City, MI
• New York, NY
• Dallas, TX
• Houston, TX

There’s a good chance you don’t live in one of these cities, even if you live in the US. That’s why we don’t recommend buying a 5G phone in 2019. If you do live in a 5G city and you’re excited about new technology, you might want to disregard our advice and be an early adopter anyway. But expect some issues with those first-generation phones—and don’t count on Apple’s next iPhone supporting 5G, either.

RELATED: Why You Shouldn’t Buy A 5G Phone In 2019

How Will Companies Bring 5G To Your City?

Wireless companies will install transmitters all over a city, with about 150-250 meters between each transmitter. These dense networks will ensure that phones and homes maintain a fast, low-latency Internet connection. These networks will also be great for mobile hotspots, and AT&T is already offering 5G mobile hotspots to select businesses and consumers.

You can’t get a 5G phone yet, but service providers are racing to get them on the shelves. The first 5G phone will be  Samsung plans to release a 5G phone with Verizon and AT&T in the next few months. T-Mobile and Sprint (which are planning to merge) have been working with Nokia, but they haven’t specified a release date for a 5G-ready cellphone.

The only service provider that’s offering home 5G right now is Verizon, but you have to live in the right city. AT&T isn’t offering home 5G yet (although you could use their mobile hotspot service in your home), but they’re probably planning to offer home 5G to their existing home Internet customers.

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T-Mobile and Sprint pitch merger as a way to beat China to 5G

Sprint CEO Michel Combes and and T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray have a message for Washington: If you want to beat China in the 5G race, you'd better approve our merger.

Why it matters: The $26 billion deal that would combine the 3rd and 4th largest U.S. wireless carriers has been waiting on federal approval for almost a year now.

• The companies shrewdly seized on all the fretting over China's threat to make the following case to telecom regulators: Sure, you'll lose one wireless competitor in the U.S., but you'll gain a stronger global competitor that can help the nation stay ahead of its 5g nemesis.
• "The race has barely begun. There's going to be an intense phase of running this race and investment in these networks. You've heard about the resources needed to do that. We're up against formidable competition. The Chinese machine has incredible momentum," Ray told a room full of wireless lobbyists (as well as a few FCC staffers).

Sprint has a boatload of mid-band spectrum that complements T-Mobile's low-band and millimeter wave spectrum. Combining financial resources would allow the companies to build faster, Ray said. "It's not '1+1=2,'" he said. "It's 1+1=4."

• On Thursday, T-Mobile CEO John Legere pledged to add at least 11,000 more jobs by 2024.
• Also on Thursday, the FCC restarted the merger review shot clock, which now runs out in early June. (Be smart: The shot clock is just a goal, not a binding deadline.)
• NEC Director Larry Kudlow also reiterated the Trump administration's support for a market-based approach to deploying 5G.

Reality check: Verizon and AT&T are moving full-speed ahead on their own 5G deployments, and Verizon flipped the switch on commercial 5G service in Minneapolis and Chicago this week.

• "We have all we need to compete against China," Verizon President Ronan Dunne told Axios when asked about his competitors' pitch. "That's not to say we should be complacent, but I don't see any evidence to say we are hamstrung in our ambitions to lead not just in the U.S. but to lead the world.

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Tower company bonanza: AT&T to build 2,000 new towers, Sprint doubles capex guidance

Wall Street analysts are almost unanimous in their outlook for the tower industry. And their outlook for the tower industry is good.

“FirstNet, AWS-3, WCS and 600 MHz should all provide healthy tailwinds to tower operators. On top of this, small cells present an incremental growth opportunity. Much of the radio bandwidth available for 5G will be at very high frequencies, which has significant implications for coverage, implying a material need for densification via small cells,” noted the analysts at Wall Street research firm Barclays in a recent report.

“There was a pregnant pause caused by T and S capex pullback in 2016,” noted the Wall Street analysts at Wells Fargo in their own missive on the tower industry. “We suspect that as more ‘naked’ spectrum is deployed across carrier networks, and Big 4 look to densify their networks for capacity’s sake, towers are well positioned to capture the incremental network spend by the carriers.”

Crown Castle, along with its fellow tower players SBA Communications and American Tower, likely will handle the bulk of the new spectrum buildouts as all of the nation’s top wireless carriers work on expanding and improving their wireless networks.

But Barclays predicted that it will be AT&T leading the way in terms of pure tower deployments. Indeed, the carrier has pointed out that it owns more than 40 MHz of unused spectrum across 700 MHz, AWS-3 and WCS that it hasn’t yet employed. Barclays said those licenses, coupled with AT&T’s agreement to aid the buildout of FirstNet’s public safety network, will result in a significant spending effort.

“In terms of the direct opportunity, we anticipate that the carrier will have to deploy new equipment on approximately 45-50K towers, as well as build an additional ~2K new towers, in order to meet the nationwide coverage requirements of the FirstNet network build,” the Barclays analysts wrote.

But AT&T won’t be alone. Sprint’s Tarek Robbiati promised the carrier would double its spending on its network this year after cutting it back dramatically in 2016. “Regarding our guidance for cash capital expenditure excluding these devices, we expect spending to double year-over-year to approximately $3.5 billion to $4 billion as we ramp up our densification and utilize the expanded toolbox of the various cost-efficient coverage and capacity options,” Robbiati said during Sprint’s quarterly conference call with investors earlier this month, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the event. “We expect network CapEx to remain around this level for the next three years, but could potentially increase if we see the right opportunity to efficiently accelerate our network plan.”

Of course, Verizon has been spending cash to deploy small cells to densify its network, while T-Mobile will be looking to put its vast 600 MHz holdings into use.

Indeed, underscoring analysts’ renewed interest in the tower sector are figures from CTIA showing a notable slowdown in tower buildouts last year. As reported by Wells Fargo, “the industry added 708 net sites in 2016 vs. 9,571 in 2015. We would expect to see a material change in this trend in 2017 as carriers look to further densify their networks and new spectrum (AWS-3, WCS, 2.5GHz) continues to be deployed.”

Wells Fargo added that the number of wireless subscribers per cell site has increased to 1,257, up from a low of 1,082 in 2012. “This number has trended between 1,100 and 1,200 per cell site until 2013, when estimated subscribers increased and cell site count plateaued at ~300K. In our view, this stat – perhaps more than any – highlights the need for further network densification in the U.S.”

The reports from Wells Fargo and Barclays come ahead of the Wireless Infrastructure Show. FierceWireless will be hosting an event at the show: "Pushing the Spectrum Boundaries: How to Prepare for a 5G World."

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