Just recently here in the U.S., cell phone carriers were able to switch on what is called
C-band 5G. And this is actually a big deal. You may have heard of it in the news talking
about C-band, but not really understood what it is, but it is a big deal. I mean, up until now,
you may have used 5G and despite all the carriers boasting about how great it is and how fast it is,
you probably didn't really notice much of a difference. In fact, in some places,
the 5G seemed to be worse. But with C-band, it's basically what I would call "true 5G". It's kind
of what everyone has been talking about for all this time, and now we're actually going to get
the speeds they've been talking about, at least in the short term, depending on your carrier.
Some of you may actually have it right now. So this video is going to be a comprehensive guide,
not some kind of surface level explanation. So you can truly be the expert among all your
friends and be able to explain what the deal is with the C-band. We're going to go over stuff like
the spectrum auctions, who and what carriers won different spectrums, and what that means
in different areas, and where C-band is launching, and when in different areas. And all sorts of
stuff you probably didn't even think to ask, but it'll all make way more sense once you do.
Before we jump in, though, I want to thank today's sponsor Recommate I'm sure many of
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Be sure to check out the link in the description where you can download it. And with all that being
said, let's continue. All right so first, a few quick points for context on cell phone
frequencies, so you probably know that companies can't just go and broadcast on any frequency they
want. Different ranges of frequencies called bands are reserved for different purposes.
So Wi-Fi, for example, at the 2.4 Gigahertz and 5 Gigahertz,
those are actually opened up so companies can make products that really use those for any purpose.
Whereas certain bands are actually reserved for cell phone frequencies, and within those larger
bands for different purposes, a company can also license a little chunk of that
for that companies' exclusive use and then other companies have to use
other parts. And that's just to make sure that the spectrum isn't too congested. When
it comes to cell phone radio signals, there are three main band ranges. So the low band
is also called nationwide. These are like the really long range ones.
These are mostly in the 600 Megahertz to 1000 Megahertz range. They can go for like
20 miles or so. So this is where companies have the really long range coverage.
And also 1000 Megahertz to 2500 Megahertz is, I think technically in this low band
range. But it's kind of getting closer to the next one, which is mid-band or also high band,
but mostly mid-band is the one we're going to be talking about today.
The high and mid-band ranges are about 2500 Megahertz, up to 6000 Megahertz,
and these go for around two miles or so, per tower. So it's not a super short distance,
like with the millimeter wave stuff that I'll mention next.
But it's a pretty good amount. Two miles, you can put a tower and that'll cover a lot of people.
So it's not ridiculously short range. And this is the bigger range that the C-band
everyone is talking about falls into. And the C-band, as far as the FCC is concerned,
is 3.7 Gigahertz to 4 Gigahertz. And this is in the mid-band. Then the
other range is the millimeter wave, which is extremely high frequency.
So this is 24 Gigahertz+ and this has a very short range, it's like a block or less.
So maybe a couple hundred feet, if you're lucky. So all that sounds great. OK, but
what is the takeaway from all that? Well, the point is that lower frequencies and
longer wavelengths (they're the inverse), then it can go a longer range.
So the nationwide, low band that I was talking about, like I mentioned, it can go very far.
However that means that it's going to have a lower
max speed. And the important point is up until now, 5G had to also use those same
low bands. So even though it was a new protocol, there was some efficiency improvements and stuff,
it was still using the lower frequencies, which meant that there was a cap on how fast
it could be. So that's why you probably didn't really notice much of a difference in speeds,
maybe a little bit, but it was because it's using those same long range, but lower speed
bands. Now I will point out, though, that in addition to the low band with the
development of 5G, companies did start building out those millimeter wave towers,
which are where you get those super high speed benchmarks and stuff with like Gigabit+.
They're all from those very, very short range, but high frequency towers. So that is something
that 4G didn't have. But the problem is those millimeter wave towers, most people are not
going to encounter those they don't have in their city unless you're in an actual venue,
or a very large city like New York or something where they're put around different blocks.
Most people, that's not even a consideration because you
come across it so infrequently. And that's where the mid-band comes in,
because mid-band frequencies are decent range, and actually pretty good speeds,
like capable of gigabit plus. The problem was up until now, companies couldn't use
mid-band, there was just none available. Though that started to change last year
in 2021, when the FCC actually auctioned off the block of the mid-band called C-band. That would
be able to be used for those cell services, and only just now the companies were able to actually
start using it. And I'll talk about why in a minute. There is one big point I want to make,
though, which is that T-Mobile is an exception.
T-Mobile acquired Sprint, which actually had a license to some mid-band spectrum,
which is unique among the other cell companies. Now, this mid-band spectrum is not
precisely C-band. It's actually 2496 to 2690 Megahertz, but that's right next to the C-band,
so it's the same idea. So T-Mobile basically has had a head start and were able to build out true
5G, because they had access to an actual mid-band spectrum they could actually use even before now,
whereas other companies had to kind of wait until now going forward.
So I just want to point that out, even though T-Mobile doesn't really necessarily use C-band,
mostly, they're using something that is pretty much the same. Now like I mentioned,
the FCC recognized that the mid-band spectrum would be very important going forward
for high capacity cell service, but it was already in use specifically by like satellite companies.
So what was the FCC to do? Well, make room. Now, technically, you may see a
definition of the C-band from 4 Gigahertz to 8 Gigahertz. That's the definition given
by the IEEE. But the FCC basically just called this block of 3.7 to 4,
as C-band, even though it doesn't really match up with other definitions.
But it does matter for the purpose of this video, and all you're going to see in the news
is the C-band is from 3.7 to 4 Gigahertz. It's a 300 Megahertz bandwidth. And this 300
Megahertz bandwidth in question, up until now, has been used by satellite companies,
mostly broadcasting between TV stations. So a TV broadcaster might
broadcast it up to the satellite and then down to the receiving station to go out to TVs and stuff.
At least that's my understanding. However, satellite companies have
actually been using a little bit more than the 300 Megahertz, they actually have
500 Megahertz total. So what the FCC has done is said, "Hey, we want to free up this
300 Megahertz. So we're kicking you off this 300 Megahertz and you're going to have to move
to the rest of the 200 Megahertz that you still have access to".
"So you just kind of have to shove all your operations up into that smaller band." And then
that would free up the space to be used by cell companies. Now, obviously, this is very expensive
for companies to change all their hardware that they've been using, so as part of the deal,
the FCC would auction off the new spectrum to the cell phone companies, and then use
that money to pay the satellite companies to cover the cost of this equipment upgrade.
So even though the satellite companies are kind of being forced to move over, it's not going to
cost them anything, theoretically. So again, the range that the FCC
actually auctioned off was 3.7 Gigahertz to 4 Gigahertz. However, they did add a 20 Megahertz
"guard" band, basically a blank space, that would
be ensuring that there's no interference between cell phone companies and the satellite companies.
So really, it's only a 280 Megahertz band that's being auctioned off,
which is 3.7 to 3.98. But next, I need to talk about a really important topic to understand,
which is that there is a process that the FCC has planned out to move these satellite
companies off this 300 Megahertz range. It's obviously not going to be instant.
So there's different phases of it, and what you saw in the news is actually just phase one. So
phase one of the plan had a deadline of December 2021, which is now past. And for this deadline,
the satellite companies had to free up the first 120 Megahertz of the full 280
in 46 so-called "partial economic areas", which are basically different markets, cities,
whatever you want to call it. Different little regions that the FCC has defined.
So even though the news has been talking about how the C-band has been opened up,
not all of it actually has, only 120 Megahertz of it, and also only in those
46 little regions. And you can actually see a map here that I made. These are all 406
of the partial economic areas. And here I highlighted the ones that are of that 46,
which are like the top ones, which actually do have the freed up C-band.
So you may actually see this being available in your area, if you live in one of these areas,
for having this new true 5G, if your carrier actually supports it yet. And apparently,
these cover about 60% of the U.S. population. So that's phase one. But
Phase two actually has a deadline of two years after the first, so December 2023.
And that's when the satellite companies have to free up the rest of the 180 Megahertz,
and they also have to free up everything in all the economic regions. So on that deadline,
the original 120 that was only in 46 areas, will be freed up everywhere. And also,
all the areas have to be freed up for the rest of the 180.
So basically December 2023, the whole C-band will be available everywhere. All right, now,
let's talk about the C-band auction that happened and how the C-band was
divvied up between the different cell companies. Because, like I said before,
even within a band, not all the companies are able to just broadcast on whatever frequency they want.
They're kind of assigned different ones, depending on what they buy as a license. So
the C-band was auctioned off in three different blocks, they were named. So there were the A,
B and C blocks, and within each block it was further divided up into 20 Megahertz bands.
And because we've only completed phase one of this clearing of the C-band, only the A block is
actually usable by the cell phone companies, even if they purchased a license for the B and C blocks
also. They have to wait until the B and C are cleared, but now that A is cleared, then they
can start using that right now and they have. And as for the results of this auction, no surprise
that the biggest bidders were AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. So first of all, with Verizon,
they bought a minimum of 140 Megahertz everywhere and an actual average of 160 Megahertz.
So bare minimum, no matter where you are, you should be able to get 140 Megahertz
of Verizon bandwidth in the C-band. And in the top 50 markets, they were able to get
that 140 Megahertz as contiguous bandwidth, which means that they
can better broadcast signals because it's all right next to each other.
They don't have to worry about constraining the signal within a certain range, they can
kind of bond the channels together, so to speak. And as for the A block,
which Verizon can use right now, they bought 60 Megahertz of bandwidth in there,
so 60 Megahertz of bandwidth in the C-band Verizon can use right now.
And they actually did switch that on, and can be used right now. You may actually be able to look
at your phone, if it says a UW next to the 5G, then that means you now have access to the C-band
most likely, unless you're next to a millimeter wave thing, which it would also say that, but
not likely. So you can check right now and see if you have Verizon service, if you have C-band now.
Now, AT&T did not buy quite as much as Verizon, so they bought 60 Megahertz+ minimum in
all 406 regions and 80 Megahertz in almost all of the top 50 of them. And in the block,
they bought 40 Megahertz. So Verizon got 60 Megahertz in the A block pretty much everywhere,
and AT&T got 40 Megahertz in A block to use right now, everywhere.
T-Mobile was also a bidder, even though they already had 100 Megahertz of mid-band frequency
from that Sprint acquisition. So T-Mobile actually bought 40 Megahertz in 72 different markets,
almost all of them were in the top 100. So they just bought a little bit
of extra bandwidth in some of the top markets, just as an add on, I guess.
But that was not the only auction, so that was auction 107
by the FCC. There was another one that was very recent, it ended in January 2022,
which was auction 110. And this auction was for the 3.45 Gigahertz range, and it was 100 Megahertz
wide. For this auction, the 100 Megahertz was divvied up ten times, so ten different blocks.
So the minimum you could buy was ten Megahertz, and they also had a maximum that a company
could singularly buy at 40 Megahertz. So it's not like some company can come in
and buy the whole thing and exclude everyone else. One thing to note about this auction though,
is that this 3.45 Gigahertz band is actually available nationwide now.
Not just like this only 46 markets until 2023. None of that. Companies could use
whatever they bought at this auction right away. AT&T bought the most of this
actually 40 Megahertz nationwide, so they didn't buy quite as much as in auction 107,
but they kind of made up for it, I guess, here. And then interestingly, Verizon bought nothing
in this auction, probably because they already got a good chunk in the other one.
So what is the current status of the three big carriers here in the United States in terms of
rolling out this C-band spectrum they bought? With T-Mobile, like I said they've already had
mid-band spectrum to use. So they're already ahead and they already gave about 200 million people
coverage of this mid-band and high speed, true 5G you might call.
And even though T-Mobile did buy some C-band spectrum, apparently they're not actually going to
use it until 2024, just because they don't really have to. Next up Verizon, they have been building
towers and we're ready to go as soon as they were allowed to switch on this C-band frequency.
So right now, I believe by the end of the month, they're going to have 100 million people covered.
And I believe that's in all 46 of those regions that I mentioned, the top 46 markets,
although not necessarily probably every single person in those markets, they're just...
they have some in all of those. So Verizon already has pretty good
coverage right now as soon as they could, and they're still rolling out pretty fast.
AT&T though, is a different story. They are really lagging behind. They only launched
this C-band 5G in eight cities, and they're only going to be able to cover
200 million people by 2023 they said. So I don't know what they're doing, they are not
launching in that many places. I don't know, maybe they were just slower to roll it out.
They are going to eventually but... So it kind of sucks for AT&T customers, they have to go
see Verizon, all their customers already have, you know, 5G C-band, and they're just
kind of waiting around for AT&T to get their act together. But that pretty much covers
everything you might want to know, the different companies and which frequency blocks they bought.
When they're going to be able to roll them out, why they have to wait
some time for certain ones. So now, if your friends bring it up, you can definitely be the
expert. Thanks again to Recommate for sponsoring the video. Again, be sure to check out the link
in the description so you can get paid just for recommending products to your friends.
Now, if you guys want to keep watching, the next video I'd recommend is one
where I was talking about the new Wi-Fi 6E Protocol. If you haven't
seen what that is. Definitely watch that. I explain it pretty well, I think. And if
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Let me know in the comments what you thought and all that good stuff. So
thanks so much for watching guys, and I'll see you in the next one.