Why one top wireless industry analyst is turning off 5G

Mike Thelander has had enough of 5G.

This week Thelander – who has been an analyst in the US wireless industry for more than 20 years, and who founded wireless network research company Signals Research Group (SRG) – said he will switch off 5G on his phone.

“I’ve just about given up on 5G, for now,” he wrote in a lengthy LinkedIn post outlining why he decided to forgo 5G in favor of 4G. “The problem may be unique to me, but it follows me wherever I go, and it occurs far more often than I’d like.”

The post has already received plenty of social media feedback: “This is a quite astonishing & brave post, from someone who absolutely knows what they’re talking about. Big respect,” wrote Disruptive Wireless analyst Dean Bubley in reply.

In comments to Light Reading, Thelander declined to name his 5G service provider but it’s clear that AT&T is the culprit. Importantly, he suggested the issue lies primarily with his provider’s implementation of 5G and is not necessarily due to his phone or his location. He said he’s seen similar issues across a number of phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S22 and S21, as well as on iPhones. And he’s experienced the problems at his home near Minneapolis and while traveling.

Thelander is certainly in a position to know about 5G problems. His firm, SRG, has conducted early, independent research into a wide range of cutting-edge wireless technologies, from T-Mobile’s standalone (SA) 5G offering to Dish Network’s open RAN-powered 5G network. Qualcomm also cites the company’s findings on millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G networks. SRG typically uses professional wireless network testing equipment for its efforts.

5G coming and 5G going

Thelander said he’s not sure exactly why he continues to encounter problems on what appears to be AT&T’s non standalone (NSA) 5G network. But he theorized that his provider’s 5G signals still require an anchor to its 4G LTE network, including for uplink connections, and that the interplay among those links is causing his dropped connections. The NSA version of 5G allowed network operators to deploy the technology quickly but required them to provide an “anchor” 4G LTE connection to customers – the standalone (SA) version of 5G removes the need for that anchor.

“If I then disable 5G on the phone … the phone [hopefully] reverts to a lowband LTE channel,” he wrote on LinkedIn. Lowband connections often travel farther than midband spectrum connections. “I then have a data connection and I can resume synching my email and web browsing (or viewing LinkedIn posts).”

He added: “Besides disabling 5G on the phone, a more attractive solution is for operators to deploy 5G SA with intelligent network decision making to determine when 5G should and shouldn’t be used.”

Thelander added that the same situation can trouble Wi-Fi connections: As users move farther away from their Wi-Fi access point, their connections become unreliable, but their phones continue to try to connect to Wi-Fi anyway.

To read the complete article, visit Light Reading.