Not getting 5G Speed

[foreverkayla8]

Hi, I came here with a similar question.  I have a Samsung F54 (for India) but I am obviously in Canada.  Could this be why I am also not seeing 5G speeds?  Since switching in March, not once have I seen 5G indicated near the service bars on the top right of my phone.  The phone does have 5G and I have a 5G plan.  I just did a speed test with wi-fi off and I got 32mbps.  Network mode is set to 5G/LTE/3G/2G (auto connect).  I do not have the option to choose 5G only.  It's not a huge deal because I rarely use my phone off wi-fi but I was just curious as to why my phone doesn't seem to want to connect to the 5G network. 

[foreverkayla8]

I'm only about 15 minutes from Sudbury and not in the boonies, so it shouldn't be that bad!  And I also have never seen it go to the, even in Sudbury, Barrie, Toronto, etc.  One of the reasons I got this phone was for the 5g so if I'm not taking advantage, I might consider something else.  Who knows, I'm really picky and love my 6000mah battery (the other reason I chose this phone).  Is it too much to ask to have a phone with everything I want AND be cheap? I guess so :). Again, 5g speeds is not a big deal because I hardly ever leave the wifi.  So I will research and see what my options are.  Thanks for your help.

[sheytoon]

@foreverkayla8 haha ok I'll try to simplify. 

Your location and phone are probably both problematic, but without having details of which CA combos your phone supports, my guess is that your location is the main issue. Your phone will probably get good speeds with CA if you go into town in Sudbury close to a cell site.

For reference, here are your phone's band specifications: 

4G FDD LTE

• B1(2100), B2(1900), B3(1800), B4(AWS), B5(850), B7(2600), B8(900), B12(700), B17(700), B20(800), B26(850),

5G* FDD Sub6

• N1(2100), N3(1800), N5(850), N7(2600), N8(900), N28(700)

5G* TDD Sub6

• N40(2300), N41(2500), N77(3700), N78(3500)

[hTideGnow]

HI @foreverkayla8 

that's one of the couple bands PM needs for 5G.  I think that is an important one too

[foreverkayla8]

What does n66 mean?

[hTideGnow]

HI @foreverkayla8 

the F54 does not have n66 and could be the reason for your 5G slowness?  maybe @sheytoon can confirm

on the other hand, you have decent 4G/LTE connection?  it looks ok to me for the 4G bands it has

[foreverkayla8]

Samsung F54.  Don't know which phone I'll get.

[hTideGnow]

hi @foreverkayla8 

what phone do you have now? and if you are getting a new one, let us know what is that and we can confirm it for you

[foreverkayla8]

I did not understand anything after that first paragraph! Lol

What I think you said is that my phone AND location seem to be the problem.  Also, what I'm hearing is that this is a good excuse to get another phone!

[sheytoon]

Looks like you're north of Sudbury and on B12, which is a low band, in this case it has 10 MHz bandwidth. 

Generally low bands are for coverage and do not have much capacity. If you get on a mid band like B2 or B7, you will have much better speeds as the channels will be 20 MHz wide. There is also B4/B66 which is 15 MHz. The only other condition for good speeds is having a good SINR. Anything above 20 is excellent, but even above 15 will give pretty good speeds on mid band.

If your phone's software allows Carrier Aggregation (CA) on Canadian networks, you will further be able to use multiple bands at the same time. For example, you can use 2-7-7-66 which is 4CA, and will give very good speeds. 

B7 is not available in rural areas. B2 should be more common.

[foreverkayla8]

The first code tells me I am using band 12.  I get an error with the second code.

 

 

[sheytoon]

@foreverkayla8 are you able to dial any of the following codes on your Samsung to get more info? 

• *#0011# to see which bands you are currently using
• *#2263# to see which bands are supported

It's a good thing you cannot force it to 5G only. That would make any phone on PM useless as there is no 5G SA service.

[Genji_Genji]

In my case it was the phone software configuration. It was an American phone on a Canadian network. So returning the phone to Amazon and got a Canadian model solved my issue. It is a possibility for your situation as well. One way to test this is to put your current SIM into a Canadian model phone and see if you are getting the expected speed. Then you can determine if it's the phone/software configuration issue or something else. Best of Luck!