Why are you not getting 5G on your phone?

What is the status of 5G network in India?

5G services may have just started in India less than two weeks ago, but smartphone makers have been advertising ‘5G support’ on smartphones sold for over a year. For example, smartphone maker Xiaomi has said that it shipped over 7 million 5G phones in India between May 2020 and June 2022. However, 5G ready phones are not necessary to access these networks. This means that the phone has the necessary hardware to connect to 5G networks, but the smartphone manufacturer may still have to provide relevant software updates to connect to these networks.

What are the software constraints in 5G adoption?

You must have noticed that smartphone battery drains faster in areas with poor mobile network. This is because devices are designed to be on the lookout for networks and to connect whenever possible. Hence, turning on 5G on a phone when the network is not available can drain the battery, which is one of the main reasons why phone makers disabled it at launch. This is commonly called ‘software lock’, which basically tells a phone not to look for 5G network and connect to 4G network only. This is why an iPhone’s connectivity settings only show 3G and LTE right now.

What can I expect from 5G on my phone?

Unfortunately, there shouldn’t be much noticeable change other than the fact that a 5G option will appear on your smartphone’s connectivity settings. There are still significant benefits of 5G for enterprises and businesses, and although bandwidth and speeds will increase, the difference will likely not be apparent to users.

Did this happen when we moved to 4G?

No. In that move, the entire network architecture was changed on the telco’s side, which meant that the phone needed new hardware as well. However, 5G uses the same system as LTE and hence, the change is even smaller on the phone end. 5G networks are backward compatible, meaning that a 4G phone can still connect to such networks. While 4G phones became ubiquitous even before 4G networks, in the 5G era, phones must start supporting networks before networks are readily available.

Is the update same for Jio and Airtel?

off course not. Jio offers a standalone (SA) 5G network while Airtel is a non-standalone (NSA) network. NSA networks are those where only the part that connects the core network infra to the end points is updated to 5G. In SA, the core is also updated, allowing more 5G applications to run. Mint reported on September 12 that most 5G phones in India already support the NSA network. Airtel is also expected to switch to SA networks in the long run, and many advanced enterprise use cases will require telcos to run SA networks.