AIS's 5G

[suzannegoh]

I've noticed AIS advertising all over the place that they have 5G service now. I think that they are operating on the 2.6GHz band rather than at mmWave frequencies only but I'm not entirely sure of that. I don't have a 5G-capable phone but with all the techies in this forum maybe someone here has experience with Thailand's fledgling 5G and might be able to comment about whether it's living up to its hype and which band it is connecting on. 

I'm well aware that there are a lot of YouTube videos and alternative media reports claiming that 5G makes birds drop dead midflight, causes birth defects, coronavirus, and even that it was the cause of 5G Grenfell Tower fire in London, but I don’t want to get into all that.  What I'm wondering is how well is working in technical terms; speed, ping times, etc. and whether it’s a bonafide upgrade from 4G.
 

[stouricks]

Starts on Thursday on 2.6GHz band. Keep your fingers crossed or not!.

[arkom]

Don’t have a 5G phone but did try speed test on a Galaxy S20 Ultra at an AIS shop, speeds were averaging around 1 gbps.  A friend of mine also uses the S20 Ultra on True and on 5G got around 300-400 mbps.

[longball53098]

IMHO spending big bucks for a 5G capable phone is a waste of money for the average user,,,,,,,,,,all hype. The only place that 5G will really be worth having is in Bangkok area as the 5G network can be built properly as they need cells very close together as I understand so out in the hinterlands it is not a good system

[edwardandtubs]

Any update on this? I was looking at some coverage maps and it seems most of Bangkok is covered now but I don't know how reliable that is. The AIS website has a map of its own towers and there seem to be a couple within a few hundred metres of me in Udomsuk but I'm not sure whether they're close enough.

[pd2002]

41 minutes ago, edwardandtubs said:

Any update on this? I was looking at some coverage maps and it seems most of Bangkok is covered now but I don't know how reliable that is. The AIS website has a map of its own towers and there seem to be a couple within a few hundred metres of me in Udomsuk but I'm not sure whether they're close enough.

You can check 5G coverage from this website.

It's data from user by using their device to create 5G coverage area. So it's highly accurate.

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/5g

 

For specific operator you can visit this link and select AIS

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/TH/-/-/signal/?ll=13.152388677984096&lg=101.49499999999998&zoom=5

 

For 5G device that IS supported 5G in Thailand (N41) Check out this link.

https://www.telecomlover.com/5gphone/

 

DO NOT random buy handset. Not all of them support N41.

If you plan to get chinese brand devices. Make sure it is china model not global. Because it will not support N41.

and one more thing stay away from Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G the antenna reception is really weak for 5G.

 

also this is 5G test by me.

[edwardandtubs]

1 hour ago, pd2002 said:

You can check 5G coverage from this website.

It's data from user by using their device to create 5G coverage area. So it's highly accurate.

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/5g

 

For specific operator you can visit this link and select AIS

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/TH/-/-/signal/?ll=13.152388677984096&lg=101.49499999999998&zoom=5

 

 

Thanks for all that very useful info. That map doesn't correspond with claims made on AIS's own website though. For example, AIS claims 5G is available at BTS Bearing but the map shows no purple there. Maybe the AIS claims are just aspirational.

 

I was thinking of buying the Xiaomi Redmi 10X but will check to make sure it's compatible.

[pd2002]

7 hours ago, edwardandtubs said:

Thanks for all that very useful info. That map doesn't correspond with claims made on AIS's own website though. For example, AIS claims 5G is available at BTS Bearing but the map shows no purple there. Maybe the AIS claims are just aspirational.

 

I was thinking of buying the Xiaomi Redmi 10X but will check to make sure it's compatible.

5G indicator in AIS website also the real one too. They installed 5G base station before updated their website. So that area you see in their website is also have 5G too.

The reason why you didn't see a purple spot in nperf.net because there's not much of AIS user help making 5G map. That's all.

 

Not sure about Xiaomi Redmi 10X. But it seem to support 5G N41 but only with china model. And if you plan to use AIS 5G you must have a phone model that operator sold to activate 5G, unlike TRUEMOVE you can activate 5G freely with any 5G phone.

 

[MJKT2014]

Whats the point in having 5G speeds if all the 'unlimited' service plans are capped at 10mbps and the limited higher speed plans cut to 128kbps after the GB limit is reached, which presumably would be in a very short time indeed if 5G??

[edwardandtubs]

29 minutes ago, MJKT2014 said:

Whats the point in having 5G speeds if all the 'unlimited' service plans are capped at 10mbps and the limited higher speed plans cut to 128kbps after the GB limit is reached, which presumably would be in a very short time indeed if 5G??

For me it's as a backup for my True Online which finds it difficult sometimes to maintain a video conference without disconnecting.

[Bender Rodriguez]

5G for what ? indeed most phones cannot handle and networks with limits...

 

and there is the EMF... no doubt

[timkeen08]

My Note 4 and 1 year old Samsung Smart TV both work quite well with 5G in our Isaan Mekong village.

[suzannegoh]

4 minutes ago, timkeen08 said:

My Note 4 and 1 year old Samsung Smart TV both work quite well with 5G in our Isaan Mekong village.

Are you sure that your Note 4 and Samsung TV are connecting to 5G rather than to 5GHz WiFi?

[pd2002]

On 6/15/2020 at 2:19 PM, MJKT2014 said:

Whats the point in having 5G speeds if all the 'unlimited' service plans are capped at 10mbps and the limited higher speed plans cut to 128kbps after the GB limit is reached, which presumably would be in a very short time indeed if 5G??

 

36 minutes ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

5G for what ? indeed most phones cannot handle and networks with limits...

 

and there is the EMF... no doubt

Exact the same question when the world introduced 4G LTE

People asked Why 4G when we have 3G.

????

[timkeen08]

3 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

Are you sure that your Note 4 and Samsung TV are connecting to 5G rather than to 5GHz WiFi?

Yes, 5G WIFI on both.  So now 5G is not 5G?  Didn't someone ask about phones being able to connect to 5G.  I have 5G Fiber coming into the house.  Do I somehow connect my phone to fiber?  Sorry, I've been out of the field for quite a few years.  Can you give me technical details of the difference and why 5G is not 5G?

[suzannegoh]

19 minutes ago, timkeen08 said:

Yes, 5G WIFI on both.  So now 5G is not 5G?  Didn't someone ask about phones being able to connect to 5G.  I have 5G Fiber coming into the house.  Do I somehow connect my phone to fiber?  Sorry, I've been out of the field for quite a few years.  Can you give me technical details of the difference and why 5G is not 5G?

"5G" refers to the 5th Generation of cellular technology, not to the frequency of operation.  Most recently produced WiFi routers have a 2.4GHz band and a 5.0GHz band and it's common that the router will be set up such that the SSID corresponding to the 5.0GHz band is named such that it has a suffix of "_5G".  However the 5GHz band on a WiFi router has nothing to do with 5G.  AFIAK AIS's 5G is operating on the 2.6GHz band, which Thailand had previously reserved for some other purpose.  The article at the link below shows a listing of all of the frequency bands that 5G can operate on.  There are a lot of them, and different countries and different carriers have chosen different ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands

[Phulublub]

On 6/15/2020 at 2:19 AM, pd2002 said:

For specific operator you can visit this link and select AIS

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/TH/-/-/signal/?ll=13.152388677984096&lg=101.49499999999998&zoom=5

 

 

Does this mean that each operator has their own network and if your are with (say) AIS, then you won't get 5G in an area only served by (say) a TRUE mast?

 

On 6/15/2020 at 2:19 AM, pd2002 said:

For 5G device that IS supported 5G in Thailand (N41) Check out this link.

https://www.telecomlover.com/5gphone/

 

DO NOT random buy handset. Not all of them support N41.

If you plan to get chinese brand devices. Make sure it is china model not global. Because it will not support N41.

and one more thing stay away from Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G the antenna reception is really weak for 5G.

 

And does this mean that a 5G phone bought here may or may not work in other countries?

 

PH

[timkeen08]

1 hour ago, suzannegoh said:

"5G" refers to the 5th Generation of cellular technology, not to the frequency of operation.  Most recently produced WiFi routers have a 2.4GHz band and a 5.0GHz band and it's common that the router will be set up such that the SSID corresponding to the 5.0GHz band is named such that it has a suffix of "_5G".  However the 5GHz band on a WiFi router has nothing to do with 5G.  AFIAK AIS's 5G is operating on the 2.6GHz band, which Thailand had previously reserved for some other purpose.  The article at the link below shows a listing of all of the frequency bands that 5G can operate on.  There are a lot of them, and different countries and different carriers have chosen different ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands

Thanks for your explanation.  It led me to where I needed to go for more information and clarity.  I never worked in the cellular field but I have been in electronics from the tube/transistor/CD crossover eras.  We did not call 2 such different things by the same name.  So all of this 5G Fiber being promoted so hard is just marketing BS riding on the back of the real 5G cellular standard.  5G WIFI is faster but a lot of people are being duped and think they have 5G.  I see it's being done the same way full blast in many countries.  I'm not going to tell my Thai and US families that they don't have 5G.  They were all so happy but many did upgrade to fiber just to get 5G (WIFI).  Again, thanks for the heads up.

[suzannegoh]

2 minutes ago, timkeen08 said:

Thanks for your explanation.  It led me to where I needed to go for more information and clarity.  I never worked in the cellular field but I have been in electronics from the tube/transistor/CD crossover eras.  We did not call 2 such different things by the same name.  So all of this 5G Fiber being promoted so hard is just marketing BS riding on the back of the real 5G cellular standard.  5G WIFI is faster but a lot of people are being duped and think they have 5G.  I see it's being done the same way full blast in many countries.  I'm not going to tell my Thai and US families that they don't have 5G.  They were all so happy but many did upgrade to fiber just to get 5G (WIFI).  Again, thanks for the heads up.

I haven't noticed any ISPs calling their Fiber "5G" but if they are that would be a misnomer.  Fiber Internet is just optical cable, which is an upgrade over copper cables but is still wired internet.

[pd2002]

3 hours ago, Phulublub said:

Does this mean that each operator has their own network and if your are with (say) AIS, then you won't get 5G in an area only served by (say) a TRUE mast?

 

 

And does this mean that a 5G phone bought here may or may not work in other countries?

 

PH

1. in short YES. But it's not that if there's no 5G coverage on the map mean it doesn't have 5G. Nperf need real users to create coverage map. If no one does. It won't show on the map.

2.If you bought 5G phone in Thailand you'll rather have a benefits over buy it somewhere else because standard 5G band in the world is N78 which every 5G phone will support N78 but not all of them supported N41.

For an example, Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (Exynos) Thai model will support both N41 & N78 while in other market it won't support N41 but only N78.

[treetops]

On 6/15/2020 at 8:19 AM, MJKT2014 said:

Whats the point in having 5G speeds if all the 'unlimited' service plans are capped at 10mbps and the limited higher speed plans cut to 128kbps after the GB limit is reached, which presumably would be in a very short time indeed if 5G??

Most users will get no noticeable benefit at all, but the R&D departments will always try for something better and the sales departments (the guys who couldn't make the cut technically) will always try to convince you it's unmissable.  It's keeping them in a job and the company in business.