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What are Public Mobile's plans once 5G arrives in the next few years.

WoozyPolarBear
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

Just wondering what will happen with Public Mobile's plans once 5G speeds arrive in Canada in 2021 and beyond? Since Public Mobile is a budget focused brand, will we still be getting 3G speeds, or do you think everyone will jump up a notch. For Example, Telus users get mirgrated up to 5G plans, and Public Mobile users will upgrade to 4G LTE, still one speed gerneration below the current max.

38 REPLIES 38

Wholecloud
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I believe PM will stay competitive in terms of rate vs service while watching what Lucky and Chatr will do since they are direct competitors. In this game, it's a matter of keeping an eye on what the others are doing and not get left behind. Afterall, it's so easy to port your number if there's a better package out there.

brid0nca
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen
You might want to get one of these. They are pretty common on Kijiji for $50. The antenna is really good, it will pick up a signal where cell phones will not. You can attach them to yagi antennas to better pick up a signal! https://www.amazon.com/ZTE-Unlocked-Wireless-Internet-Hotspot/dp/B07JJZNP2S

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@mh1983 wrote:

@jor123 wrote:

I find the latency is unbearable on the HSPA network in Newfoundland everywhere I've tried / had to use it (with ok  and even good signal strength). 


Oh dear. My wife and I are moving back to St. John's, NL. Can others comment on the reliability of the service on the rock?


LTE works perfectly fine and there aren't many places in St. John's where you won't have it, but I've noticed if I have a call active (and am then using 3G data) or if I'm in a rural area where the phone drops down to the 3G network - sometimes with perfectly usable LTE - it really sucks. Solid in the St. John's metro area.

Wholecloud
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I'm quite happy with the current service/data speeds provided as I'm not a big time data user  any downloads are not a rush and can be done when there is wifi.

mh1983
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@jor123 wrote:

I find the latency is unbearable on the HSPA network in Newfoundland everywhere I've tried / had to use it (with ok  and even good signal strength). 


Oh dear. My wife and I are moving back to St. John's, NL. Can others comment on the reliability of the service on the rock?

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

I find the latency is unbearable on the HSPA network in Newfoundland everywhere I've tried / had to use it (with ok  and even good signal strength). 


@sheytoon wrote:
@jor123 wrote:

42mbps I believe with DC-HSPA? 


Yes, but realistically you can't get more than 35 Mbps with dual carrier.

 

DC is only on 1900 in some areas.

Single carrier is for 850 in all areas.

 

Single carrier speeds are approximately 17 Mbps.


I can routinely hit between 25 and 35Mbps on DC-HSPA in some places in Toronto, but that's likely in near perfect network conditions, and within 100 meters of the "tower".  If I got even 0.5km away, it's starts to drop off, usually levelling of between 15 and 20Mbps.

@jor123 wrote:

42mbps I believe with DC-HSPA? 


Yes, but realistically you can't get more than 35 Mbps with dual carrier.

 

DC is only on 1900 in some areas.

Single carrier is for 850 in all areas.

 

Single carrier speeds are approximately 17 Mbps.

According to this article both Telus and Rogers are planning to offer 5G by 2020.

https://www.lifewire.com/5g-canada-4582444

kav2001c
Mayor / Maire

@WoozyPolarBear 

2021 is beyond optimistic

I don't think we have even had the spectrum auction for 5G yet?

 

*edit

Yeah next year (maybe)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/5g-wireless-spectrum-auction-1.4694214

 

 

 

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@AE_Collector wrote:

What speed is 3G actually capable of? Whatever the maximum speed is I assume that one is very unlikely to see that speed in real life!

Terry


42mbps I believe with DC-HSPA? 

What speed is 3G actually capable of? Whatever the maximum speed is I assume that one is very unlikely to see that speed in real life!

Terry

popping
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

Remember Telus turned off the CDMA signal couple years ago, May 31, 2017.

Rogers is scheduled to turn off the GSM signal on December 31, 2020.

 

When Telus decided to turn off the 3G transmitter in the future, PM subscribers will be forced off the 3G signal onto LTE.

 

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@sheytoon Interesting, thanks. 

I can't imagine why I would want to pay the premium to access data with puny capacities and terrible speeds on a dinky little touchscreen computer when I could have broadband internet on a vastly better machine at home for lower cost.

 

So I'm thinking 5G had better cost low enough to make it compelling. Or Apple/Google/etc had better figure out a way to make 5G bandwidth desirable, useful, and important enough to justify the price. Younger people tend to have notorious mobile data addictions, but older people are the ones who decide how much they're willing (or unwilling) to pay for it. 

WoozyPolarBear
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@sheytoon wrote:

@WoozyPolarBear you are confusing 5G with millimeter wave, and making it sound worse than it is. You can have your hand between the phone and the tower, it won't render the signal useless.

 

I agree mmWave appears to be a lot of hype at this point, but 5G can use all the same frequency bands that are used for 3G and 4G today, in addition to mmWave.

 

Whether 5G as a technology will live up to the hype is not known at this point. We will find out in a few years.

 

A lot of the benefits for 5G won't be visible until the core network is ready and the deployments change from NSA to SA.


Still doesn't change the fact that carriers are going to use the buzz of 5g as an excuse to raise plan rates much much higher than they are now. With technology, it never pays off to be the early adopter. I'll gladly wait until 10 years from now, when the price has cooled off before I jump on

Non-standalone to standalone...3g-usage-scenarious-figure2b.png

 

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@sheytoon wrote:

@WoozyPolarBear you are confusing 5G with millimeter wave, and making it sound worse than it is. You can have your hand between the phone and the tower, it won't render the signal useless.

 

I agree mmWave appears to be a lot of hype at this point, but 5G can use all the same frequency bands that are used for 3G and 4G today, in addition to mmWave.

 

Whether 5G as a technology will live up to the hype is not known at this point. We will find out in a few years.

 

A lot of the benefits for 5G won't be visible until the core network is ready and the deployments change from NSA to SA.


NSA to SA? 

@WoozyPolarBear you are confusing 5G with millimeter wave, and making it sound worse than it is. You can have your hand between the phone and the tower, it won't render the signal useless.

 

I agree mmWave appears to be a lot of hype at this point, but 5G can use all the same frequency bands that are used for 3G and 4G today, in addition to mmWave.

 

Whether 5G as a technology will live up to the hype is not known at this point. We will find out in a few years.

 

A lot of the benefits for 5G won't be visible until the core network is ready and the deployments change from NSA to SA.

WoozyPolarBear
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

I personally believe 5G is going to be a major flop, and more hype than anything. Apparently, you can't have anything obstructing a 5G signal, not even your hand while holding the phone. 5G also has a tiny range. I really think 5G is just going to be overblown full of hype and used solely as a means to raise consumer plan prices.

cavemantoronto
Mayor / Maire

Nothing will happen in short term. Public is slow to change. It doesn't matter because it's not available yet. Public doesn't wany customers to have LTE so why would 5g change anything?


@Korth wrote:

https://www.telus.com/en/about/news-and-events/media-releases/successful-5g-pilot-places-canada-at-t...

 

(And this article is already almost two years old.) 


I remember that demo. It was a pre-standard demo with a prototype "phone" using spectrum that is (still today) not licensed for commercial deployment in Canada.

 

The very first 3GPP standards for 5G NR were frozen in December 2017. This was done a few months before that.

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

But when things like wifi calling and voice over LTE still aren't available on Public Mobile or Telus/Koodo phones outside of a limited list, how soon could we realistically ever expect 5G... 


@Korth wrote:

5G has already arrived. Sort of. In some places.


Not yet in Canada. Mostly in US and Korea, with smaller deployments in other countries.

"The future is friendly. " - Telus

 

5G has already arrived. Sort of. In some places.

 

I think Public Mobile will always offer basic, lower-tier Data service.  But I'm guessing they'll assign maximal performance caps which will always be *just barely* adequate to deliver minimum QoS for essential/common Data communications. Apple and Google and Facebook and the internet keep inventing ever-larger bloat and more sneaky telemetry/background leaks, devices and networks have to invent ever-denser technologies to keep consumers paying for the "need" to access all that Data in their pockets.

 

I'm also guessing the "3G" moniker will be dropped. It already causes confusion with how it relates to the Telus family of 4G technologies, it'll cause even more confusion when people start bantering 5G around. They were never really about accurate technical categories anyhow, they're marketing labells.

Stirfiro
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

@mimmo wrote:

 You will probably see migration offers to koodo first which I believe is the ultimate objective.

 

I wouldn't consider that the 'ultimate objective' anymore, since Koodo doesn't offer much for reasonable roaming plans. That was the main reason that I switched from Koodo to Public. Kind of hard to beat PM's 8.5 + 2gb roaming package. 


 

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Hopefully PM won't be left completely behind... 

Since PM is really LTE but throttled to 3Mb per second, eventually they may bump the throttle speed up somewhat and may even call it 4G/LTE like speeds! Just as many/most PM customers see LTE on their screen now, some will begin to see 5G on their phone screen once it begins to roll out and if their phone is 5G capable. That won’t change the 3Mb per second cap until the decision is made by TELUS that PM will be at some new higher speed. Eventually this is bound to happen but no one knows if or when.

 

Terry

frankieshi
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Need to get a 5G phone first...

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