5G service in Austin, TX

[golanre]

I recently moved to Austin from Saint Louis. Along the way, my plan was ported from ATT to Verizon (I’m using  iPhone 14 Pro).

though this is a post paid, 5G plan, all I get is LTE even around major highways. I tried restarting my phone, reset the network, 5G Auto and 5G on, both with or without 5G stand alone, with zero luck. I considering moving back to ATT, unless someone has a suggestion?

Thank you,

[vzw_customer_support]

Congratulations on your move! We're sorry to hear you're not getting the coverage you were expecting in Austin. Are you getting 5G anywhere at all?

-Melissa

[golanre]

There are extremely rare spots where 5G is working. The speeds are very low and comparable with LTE. I was never able to get UW which is really frustrating. Same phone with ATT as the service provider was constantly 5G, with great 5G+ coverage.

[SynthpopAddict]

Welcome to Austin!  I live in the south part of town, ported to Verizon from Spectrum Mobile in September of 2023, and my 5G light was on for 2 months straight, but shut off a couple months ago.  Ever since then, getting 5G is a matter of luck and seems to happen only when I'm using something needing internet access.  In my experience, the network here is really congested a lot of the times, which is why 5G is hard to come by?  Curiously, I've noticed that entering "Austin, Texas" in the Check Network Status thing gives you the message about "data, voice, and text are limited" blah blah, but this message doesn't appear if I use my address.  Makes me wonder if this area is slated for some kind of upgrade and Verizon can't say more because that's proprietary information.

I've had pretty good luck with picking up 5G in the Southpark Meadows shopping center area lately.  Have heard The Domain is a giant AT&T dead zone, while there's somewhere in north central Austin which is a Verizon dead zone...just an FYI.  Verizon's network is still based on a 4G LTE core, so the 5G is not standalone.  Also, Verizon's 5G network isn't really all that big, sadly...we can only hope they'll try to catch up to the other guys!

[golanre]

I live close to the Apple campus, and most of the area has poor 5G coverage. When I get lucky, it’s never UW, and the speeds are no better than LTE. Now that I know that it’s not a standalone implementation, the speeds make sense to me. I wish Verizon were more transparent about the situation in Austin (and generally) and what they plan on doing about it, and save us all this frustration.

[SynthpopAddict]

Don't quote me on this, but I think 5G standalone is only a very limited offering, may only be limited to certain band spectrums as well.  Want to say T-Mobile was the first carrier to launch it, but I just Googled and all the major carriers have standalone 5G in some capacity now, but it certainly isn't for all 5G coverage everywhere.

The only Verizon plans which give you 5G UW access are the top 2 postpaid plans and whatever the top tier prepaid plan is; everybody else will only get regular 5G if it's available and the network isn't overly congested.  From what you're describing, it sounds like the tower(s) in your area are running at capacity most of the time which is why whatever 5G you get isn't any faster than LTE.  However, I do have a suspicion that some part of Verizon is aware of the situation because the following continues to appear in the Check Network Status widget whenever I enter "Austin, Texas" and not my complete address (has been this way for weeks).  I have noticed that in some areas, 5G speeds have been improving of late, so the towers must be in a process of being upgraded.

[golanre]

Yeah, I get conflicting info too. If I check the Verizon network status for my address  I get that all is fine (while in reality I only get LTE). When I check the same thing but using a generic Austin, TX as the address, I get "Data, voice, and text are limited in Austin, TX. There is a known issue in this area and we are working on a solution."

Comparing my results with others using apps such as Opensignal, I see that I am not alone here ☹️

Either way, I now understand that until Verizon makes a significant upgrade in Austin, it is what it is. Unfortunetly I am stuck with Verizon, as this is the service provider my company is using. I can't believe I am saying that, but I realy miss AT&T.

[vzw_customer_support]

Thank you for letting us know about the conflicting information.  This is the Verizon resource to use: How to Check Verizon Coverage in the US     https://www.verizon.com/support/knowledge-base-16455/

Let us know if your have questions about your service, and we can look deeper.

-Deb

[golanre]

Here is what I get when I use the URL you provided and put my address. Everything one the map in my area is dark red (which means 5G coverage) but in reality, the whole area is LTE only. Even when I get 5G, the speed is very slow (25-35Mb download)

What can be done about it.

[SynthpopAddict]

I saw a post in another thread from someone who said they live somewhere west of Mopac and they had trouble getting 5G as well, also that their signal strength wasn't all that great.  Other than switching carriers, the only thing you can do is to wait for the towers in your area to be upgraded. 😞

If it's any consolation, it does look like Verizon has been slowly upgrading the towers in Austin, because I've been able to get rather good 5G speeds in the south parts of town.  Have gotten over 100Mbps down in 2 separate weekends recently at the grocery store I shop at, and got over 70Mbps down while sitting in a doctor's office close to St. David's South Austin hospital location.  Before, I wasn't getting much better than 40-50Mbps down on 5G if my 5G light even came on.  Now, it's like a little joke I play with my phone...open up my speedtest app, and it's as if Verizon is saying "No, we don't want to disappoint you with some slow data speeds!  Here's some 5G for you!" because seriously, a lot of the times when I do want to check the data speeds, my phone will immediately switch to 5G.  But when I'm at home, I think my phone is getting signal from a tower closer to Buda, which hasn't been upgraded yet because my phone is in LTE 99% of the time when I'm at home (but I can still get lucky especially late at night or very early in the morning before most people wake up).

P.S. - I'm merely a prepaid customer who is deprioritized since I'm on a cheap plan, but yes, Verizon's 5G does exist, so hang in there!

[golanre]

Thank you, I guess I have no choice, as it’s company plan. Even 100Mbs feels like a joke, as with my ATT plan I used to get 300 minimum and easily over 600 with 5G+ when in their antennas vicinity. Oh well, can’t have it all 😊

[SynthpopAddict]

Wow!  I'm guessing in St. Louis where you were previously, AT&T must have had some seriously great 5G service... Have heard the same about Verizon's service where they have mmWave installed, but that's not everywhere because of the very limited distance high-band 5G travels.  From what I've heard in Austin, there's n77 C-band service in some areas, but as a prepaid customer, I'm not eligible to access it, so was seriously impressed to get over 100Mbps down on the low-band 5G.

Don't know what apps you run, but I've found that one really only needs about 20-30Mbps down to get most apps to perform decently, unless you're doing some high-quality streaming, running video conferencing stuff, or playing resource hogging games?

[marcbnaus]

I just moved here too. Worst Verizon service I’ve ever had.  I may have to pay off my phones and switch.    I thought for a tech city I’d be good in the cellular data department haha. 

[SynthpopAddict]

I've got the sneaking suspicion all the carriers keep tabs on each others' performance in an area.  When I did a very brief oops with a competitor, I noticed the sales guy's phone was in extra bandwidth 5G mode even sitting idle on the table.  Asked him what his data speed was out of curiosity since this competitor pushes their 5G network greatness constantly.  The speed test came back at 186Mbps down, which is respectable, but not seriously amazing?

Verizon doesn't have mmWave installed anywhere in Austin as far as I know, so all the 5G UW service is n77 mid-band which I'd have to guess runs about that speed too.  (My service plan isn't eligible for 5G UW.) The 3rd major carrier I have never tried, but if they were way better than the other 2, wouldn't everyone have already figured it out and gone to them?

[golanre]

They aboloutly do, and I hope they read this one.  It's amazing to see the Verizon 5G coverage on the map in their website, which is showing perfect coverage, where in reality it's mostly LTE and spotty at best 5G service. And even with 5G, it's soooo slow, almost to the levell of useless...

[SynthpopAddict]

At least you aren't getting truly useless data speeds.  I've been known to get under 1Mbps down speeds on LTE at times with my cheap plan, so it could always be worse. 😉 I love my cable internet on my PC...

[SynthpopAddict]

@golanre, where did you get the information on the 5G UW bands used in Austin?  I just checked OpenSignal and none of the carriers have the near 1gig download data speeds you'd expect to see with mmWave high-band 5G.  Maybe I'm looking at the wrong apps...unless OpenSignal is using my exact location to calculate their statistics.  I'm not in the downtown area which is the only place I'd expect to see high-band 5G installed.  Anywhere else it would be low- and mid-band 5G cells.  Cellmapper.net for whatever reason does not show anything about Verizon's 5G.

This is what OpenSignal is telling me (on my phone) as I write this post on my PC:

4G in Austin, TX Network Averages:

AT&T 34.71Mbps down, 7.82 up

T-Mobile 51.94Mbps down, 8.37 up

Verizon 23.41Mbps down, 7.6 up

5G in Austin, TX Network Averages:

AT&T 111.92Mbps down, 14.66 up

T-Mobile 257.12Mbps down, 20.76 up

Verizon 85.80Mbps down, 13.19 up

Guess T-Mobile is working for somebody, but it sure didn't for me because I never got more than ~30Mbps down on their 5G when I tried them, and I was a postpaid customer!  When I get lucky on my Verizon prepaid plan which is cheaper than what I was paying "T-Maybe", my low-band 5G is faster than that in Austin.  But...Verizon...you're still lagging behind the competition.  I like you anyway, but just sayin'. 😉

[golanre]

I was talking about my own experiences in STL and Austin, using Ookla Speed Test on my phone and Opensignal.

ATT was definetly higher, especially in STL. I only have verizon experience in Austin and the top speed I got at 5G (I never had the pleasure to see Verizon 5G UW on my phone ) was 22.1 up and 29.3 down with 35ms latency.

[SynthpopAddict]

The towers in your neighborhood must be completely maxed out if that's all you're getting on 5G.  Since your line is on a company plan, you're stuck unless you can convince them to port your line out. 😞 Hope Verizon does something to improve the service.