There has been a barrage of 5G news this week and it’s time to add another to the list. T-Mobile has decided to postpone the full launch of its 5G network until the second half of this year. It has decided to do that because phones that will be compatible with said network aren’t ready yet, so the company says.
T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray confirmed to CNET in an interview that Magenta won’t launch its 5G service in the first 30 cities that it has highlighted until the second half of this year. Ray had told the scribe a year ago that the network would be launched in the first half of 2019.
He hopes that this additional time will enable manufacturers and chipset makers to have the components ready for a phone that can use the lower band 600 megahertz spectrum which T-Mobile is using as the backbone of its nationwide 5G network.
The 5G Galaxy S10, for example, uses high-frequency bands that have compatibility with Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. T-Mobile is deploying the same bands now but the coverage isn’t wide enough for T-Mobile to promote it.
This delay would put T-Mobile at least a few months behind its competitors. Sprint announced today that it will be launching its 5G network by May this year while Verizon and AT&T are also expected to follow through in the next few months.