iPhone 12 Users On Verizon Might Actually Be Better Off Using 4G

During Apple’s iPhone 12 presentation, they brought Verizon’s CEO Hans Vestberg onto stage where they highlighted 5G and how iPhone 12 users could benefit from it. This is more or less a given, considering that 5G will indeed offer up faster speeds compared to previous technologies like 4G, but it seems that in the real-world, that isn’t necessarily the case.

This is according to the folks at PC Mag, who did some testing of their own, and found that for iPhone 12 users who are on Verizon’s network that turning off 5G and going back to 4G could actually be better. This isn’t to say that the claims about 5G speeds are false, but rather it’s Verizon’s implementation.

To help spread the coverage of 5G, Verizon has employed the use of dynamic spectrum sharing. This basically uses part of the 4G channels for 5G, but unfortunately during their tests, PC Mag found it to be often slower compared to 4G, meaning that users might be better off using 4G which will be less of a battery drain compared to 5G.

In a statement made to the website, a Verizon spokesperson said, “For most customers, performance on our 5G nationwide network will be similar to 4G. [DSS] is new technology and we’re continuing to modify it as we go. We expect performance improvement through 2021 and beyond.”

We expect that over time, things should improve and given that 5G is still relatively new, we expect that there will be some growing pains like when 4G was first deployed, so this is merely a temporary setback for now.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: 5G, iPhone, iphone 12, Social Hit, Verizon