Last month,adventures in auto-eroticism': economies of traveling masculinity in on the road and the first thir Sprint made a big to-do out of launching its 5G network in New York City. The Big Apple is particularly problematic for 5G because the city is spread across four different landmasses and there are tall, signal-blocking buildings everywhere. There's a sense that if it works here, it can work in any city.
That's why I was particularly excited to test it out without any restraints. Armed with 5G-ready hardware courtesy of Sprint (in this case, a Samsung Galaxy S10 5G), I made a couple of excursions to different areas of Manhattan while aggressively using Speedtest to see how the 5G signal held up.
Sprint gave us a map of areas in Manhattan where the signal was supposed to be particularly strong. While I checked out several of those points, I also made it my mission to go away from those places to see how it held up.
Here is what I found ...
Trip 1: Around the office
Since most people outside of NYC probably don't know the city's geography that well, I'll keep it simple. Sprint's 5G network is largely based in Manhattan, the island where many people work but don't necessarily live. According to the carrier's coverage map, 5G also works in parts of the other boroughs, but my testing was Manhattan-centric.
Mashable's office is roughly halfway between the bottom of Central Park and the southern tip of the island. In other words, it's right in the middle of where 5G coverage should be fairly strong. However, tests didn't quite bear that out.
My best results in the area were at Union Square Park, a fairly open area that sits on top of a major subway hub. I was able to get download speeds of anywhere from 200 to 400 Mbps, which is significantly faster than anything I've seen on an LTE connection. Seriously, it's wild to see Speedtest's virtual speedometer basically break when 5G is working well.
Unfortunately, the signal couldn't keep up once I moved away from the park and surrounded myself with tall buildings. Download speeds occasionally cracked triple digits, but sometimes they resembled 4G speeds. Other times, the phone didn't connect to the 5G network at all.
It's worth noting that this was notone of the areas Sprint recommended to us. It's also interesting that the phone says it's connected to 5G in our office (which sits more than a dozen stories up), but the connection speed is slow to the point of being useless. Whether that's a long-term problem with 5G or a quirk of our location remains to be seen.
Trip 2: A walk through southern Manhattan
My most ambitious undertaking was a long walk from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan to our office. Instead of going in a straight line, I stopped by a few of Sprint's recommended spots.
Battery Park may be beautiful on a nice day, but it's not a 5G sanctuary right now. I was able to get a connection in small pockets of the park, but nothing consistent enough to be usable. It's not on the coverage map, so in total fairness, I won't call this a failure on Sprint's part.
As I walked through the Financial District, replete with densely packed tall buildings, I noticed the phone never made enough of a 5G connection for me to even bother running speed tests. That changed as I approached a neighborhood called Two Bridges, so named because there are two bridges in the area. Go figure.
SEE ALSO: iOS 13 review: The iPhone goes darkThis was noted as a strong 5G area by Sprint and that turned out to be the case. I got triple digit download speeds pretty much anywhere I went. Here's some visual evidence for you.
That trend continued as I walked through Chinatown. Whether I was on busy streets or in quiet alleyways, Chinatown served up rock solid 5G connectivity and download speeds. In all of my testing, I never saw anything much higher than 400Mbps, but Two Bridges and Chinatown regularly broke 300.
As I kept moving north, things became slightly more spotty. Sometimes download speeds would crack triple digits, and sometimes they wouldn't, seemingly at random. Washington Square Park, with its gorgeous fountain and iconic arches, was a bit of an oddity. The phone would connect to 5G, but the quality of the connection varied wildly depending on where I was in the park.
Trip 3: The bright lights of midtown and the open air of Central Park
Last but not least for this round of testing was midtown Manhattan. You know, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, all that fun stuff that some people who live here try to avoid at all costs.
As someone who fits squarely into that group, it brings me no pleasure to report the 5G coverage in that area is pretty decent.
I got connection speeds roughly in the range of 200 to 350 Mbps around Rockefeller Center, without much else to report in terms of inconsistency or dead zones. I went into the Nintendo Store because it's close by, I hadn't been in a while, and I thought it might make for an entertaining visual. I hope you enjoy.
Times Square was a fairly different experience. I ran a few different tests as I waded through the hellish cacophony of tourists taking photos next to costumed Disney mascots. Maybe it's because Times Square is congested and likely a warzone for wireless internet, but the 5G signal here was roughly as good (or slightly worse than) 4G.
I managed to get better results at the northern end of Times Square, but in general, it looked like this.
The place I was most curious about in all of this was Central Park. It's not on Sprint's coverage map, so I was under no illusions that it would work. But still, the idea of using a super fast 5G connection to get some work done in the natural beauty of Central Park is tantalizing to me.
My gut instinct turned out to be correct on this one. I didn't test the entire park (it's huge, if you've never been), but the southern end of it wasn't encouraging. The phone would sporadically get a 5G connection, but download and upload speeds were unusably slow. Like, slower than 4G.
Again, I figured this was the most likely outcome. Still, let the record show that Sprint's 5G network isn't so hot in the park.
Under construction
Early returns for Sprint's 5G network in NYC are mixed. Some aspects of it are appreciably better than 4G LTE, while others are not. It's also so heavily dictated by geography and terrain that prospective 5G subscribers should really ask themselves if it's worth it right now.
If you live in the parts of the city where the signal is strong and you think your life will reallybenefit from having super fast mobile internet while you're outdoors, Sprint's 5G network might make sense for you.
If you meet those conditions and you're willing to pay more than $1,000 for a phone and $80 per month for Sprint's Premium Unlimited 5G plan, congratulations. You're the target audience for 5G in New York City. As for everyone else, you're probably better off waiting until all of those things are cheaper and more widely available.
Basically, Sprint's 5G network in the Big Apple is very cool when it works, but you most likely don't need it yet.
Topics 5G New York City