5G is here in Knoxville but chances are you don’t have a 5G capable phone … yet.
We wanted to see what the 5G experience was like so we got in touch with U.S. Cellular. The company is in the process of rolling out 5G across its entire network. In 2020, U.S. Cellular spent $14.6 million on 5G upgrades across East Tennessee.
“In the past year we’ve added 5G to 130 cell sites here in eastern Tennessee and will continue to deploy over the next few years,” said Lori Dawson, senior director of services engineering for U.S. Cellular. Dawson explained that this involved upgrading antennas and running fiber to each tower. “It provides a lot of benefits.”
We wanted to see what early adopters could expect with 5G so we borrowed a 5G compatible Samsung Galaxy Z from U.S. Cellular.
More:5G is here in Knoxville but what is it and how does it work?
What did we do?
With the 5G phone we drove all over Knoxville, back and forth across the mapped 5G service area on U.S. Cellular’s website. We conducted speed tests at different locations using the Ookla Speedtest app and compared the upload and download speeds to a 4G phone served by Verizon wireless.
We also streamed music and video in various places, used the 5G phone to navigate and streamed video conferences using the 5G phone as a hotspot.
Finally, as a stress test we drove from the Cumberland Strip then along Kingston Pike to Turkey Creek at rush hour, streaming a teleconference using the 5G phone as our internet connection.
What did we find?
5G speed and performance varied by neighborhood. In some cases, like near West High School and Austin East High School during class changes, 5G performed much better than 4G. Some places, particularly along Chapman Highway, 5G was an order of magnitude faster than 4G.
In some places that were marked as having 5G on the coverage map, like TVA Plaza downtown or parts of East Magnolia Avenue, we could not connect to the network and were unable to directly compare 5G to 4G performance.
Here’s a look at the neighborhood tests:
Downtown and Old City
- 5G was very spotty downtown.
- Connection to 5G was not very consistent with the coverage map. This is probably due to signal interruptions from buildings.
- U.S. Cellular has not yet finished expanding into downtown so its not likely that this situation will last as the network improves.
East Knoxville
- 5G coverage was consistent throughout the east side of the city with some noticeable dead spots near Pizza Palace and approaching the ridgeline north of East Magnolia Avenue.
- Speeds were overall faster or on par with 4G.
- Speeds and coverage overall improved near highways, commercial areas and large public buildings.
- The five Points Neighborhood had a very spotty 5G signal.
South Knoxville
- 5G coverage was incredibly fast on the northern part of Chapman Highway and in the neighborhood north of Fort Dickerson Park.
- 5G coverage was blocked by a large hill and disappeared shortly after Woodlawn Pike.
- 5G came back in while driving on South Haven Road and cut out near the Island Home Neighborhood and was a little spotty throughout Old Sevier.
North Knoxville and Fountain City
- Most of North Knoxville does not yet have 5G from U.S. Cellular.
- The 5G phone was able to function normally in 4G areas in North Knoxville.
- 5G came in roughly as one would expect from the coverage map, especially past Dutch Valley and in the Whittle Springs area.
- Fountain City near the park and in the commercial strip on North Broadway worked well, but was spotty or absent in neighborhoods.
Halls and Powell
- Excellent signal from Rifle Range Road on Highway 441 and throughout the commercial area.
- Maintained 5G, even outside of mapped coverage area, along all of East Emory Road into Powell.
West Knoxville and Fort Sanders
- Strong coverage in Fort Sanders near the University of Tennessee campus.
- Strong coverage near Pellissippi State Community College and Tennessee College of Applied Technology.
- Faster speed and consistent speed while West High School was letting out for the day compared to 4G.
- Cell coverage in general, including 4G and 5G, suffered in Sequoyah Hills with the best coverage being near Cherokee Boulevard by the river.
West Knoxville and Knox County
- 5G was able to maintain an unbroken video conference during rush hour on Kingston Pike until Turkey Creek.
Overall
5G was on average faster than 4G and was able to handle some fairly stressful use during peak usage times.
Overall, 5G was 10 megabits per second faster than 4G and the phone we were provided was able to handle switching back and forth between 4G and 5G without too many problems.
Caveats
Our testing only compared 5G from one network to 4G from another network. Your experience will vary depending on the network, phone and software you’re using. We also didn’t do testing within buildings or inside of homes in the neighborhoods we surveyed.
U.S. Cellular has not implemented higher-speed levels of 5G in its coverage area. Mid-band and possibly high-band 5G are in the planning stages but haven’t been implemented. U.S. Cellular did not provide a specific timeframe for when those developments will occur.
Finally, Verizon, which was our comparison point for 4G, has implemented 5G across Knoxville, including downtown. Because 4G and low-band 5G use similar frequencies, our tests may have compared an upgraded 4G network to a 5G network. Verizon also uses mid- and high-band 5G in limited areas, mostly around the University of Tennessee and Fort Sanders, which promise faster speeds but we were not able to cross-compare it with 4G.
What’s the bottom line for 5G in Knoxville?
In most circumstances, 5G performs like an upgraded 4G network. It handles video conferencing and streaming fairly well, even during periods of high network stress. In edge zones between 4G and 5G, it might confuse your phone a little bit as it toggles back and forth but in our tests it didn’t have a noticeable impact on performance.
5G coverage maps are not 100% accurate, so if you’re thinking of becoming an early adopter, you should ask a friend who uses the same network that you do to come by your house to test the signal. Otherwise you might not get the coverage you expect. A spokesperson for U.S. Cellular said that buildings, dense trees and the landscape can interfere with signal, so if you live in a large building, or in a hollow under some trees, you might not get the best coverage.
Finally, while 5G was overall faster than 4G, it wasn’t a major game changer. If you don’t want to upgrade now and your place of work hasn’t installed a private 5G network there’s not a super big reason to make the leap. The games, virtual reality and consumer-facing applications just aren’t in place yet. Jumping over to 5G means being there when those applications launch but if that isn’t appealing, you can stick to 4G.
Industry experts told us that 5G, as the new standard, will eventually be on all mobile devices anyway so even if you don’t want to be an early adopter you will probably get a 5G phone at some point.
How does 5G compare to 4G? We decided to test it all over Knoxville