Finding the limits of Dish’s new 5G network

Dish is attempting one thing nobody’s succeeded at for a really very long time: construct a brand new nationwide cell community from the bottom up. The 5G service, known as Undertaking Genesis, finally went live in “over 120 cities” two weeks in the past, and my colleague and I instantly signed as much as try it out.

From the beginning, we had some huge questions: how briskly will this new community be? Would we even have the ability to discover Dish service? And did the corporate launch Genesis earlier than it was prepared simply to satisfy its contractual obligations with the federal government and keep away from tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in fines?

Given how buggy the sign-up process was, I didn’t have excessive hopes once I unboxed my Undertaking Genesis-specific Samsung Galaxy S22. However after every week of testing it in Spokane, Washington, I can’t say that the community is an abject failure — or a hovering success. It’s, as its title implies, only a begin. And should you go in search of them, it’s simple to seek out the community’s limits.

First, and most vital, is protection. Dish appears to have achieved an honest job overlaying a superb chunk of Spokane. Utilizing an app known as CellMapper, I used to be capable of inform whether or not my telephone was getting service from Dish’s cell community or whether or not it was falling again onto protection from AT&T, which Dish is paying to serve as a backstop for its network. I’ve completely discovered areas the place my telephone begins utilizing AT&T’s towers as an alternative of Dish’s, however I used to be getting Undertaking Genesis 5G all through downtown and on a variety of the interstate. I’d say it vastly exceeded my protection expectations for a model new community.

Really utilizing the Undertaking Genesis community, nevertheless, doesn’t really feel as spectacular. I’ve had main points indoors, the place information will both sluggish to a crawl (assume sub-20 and even sub-10 Mbps) or cease working altogether. I had a really irritating expertise in a restaurant the place I had to hook up with Wi-Fi so I might message my spouse, and there have been a number of instances the place I’ve needed to swap away from mobile at my home as a result of Dish’s community simply wasn’t working there. To be clear, these aren’t buildings the place I’d anticipate to have points; my regular Verizon-powered telephone works simply wonderful at dwelling.

Photograph by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

This isn’t actually the way it’s speculated to work. If you’re someplace that’s not lined by Dish’s towers, your telephone ought to routinely swap over to utilizing AT&T’s community (and, soon, T-Mobile’s). More often than not, this labored seamlessly — it was simply indoors the place it struggled. The backup community is sweet information for anybody who often travels exterior of Genesis’ protection space, which, in the interim, is prone to be anybody that makes use of Genesis. (Because of an settlement with the Federal Communications Fee, Dish has to cowl 20 p.c of People now and up to 75 percent by 2025.) You don’t appear to be getting a watered-down model of AT&T’s service both; I used to be in New York Metropolis for a pair days this week, far, far-off from any Dish tower, and was capable of pull down a whopping 317 Mbps from an AT&T tower.

(My colleague within the Houston space, however, has been on AT&T’s community all the time, although he hasn’t hit the stretch of Westpark Tollway the place CellMapper’s crowdsourced map has recognized three Dish towers.)

Again to utilizing Dish’s precise community, although, as that’s what I take advantage of a majority of the time once I’m dwelling in Spokane. I’d describe the expertise open air or in a automotive as typically “wonderful.” Aside from just a few hiccups the place the music I used to be streaming would pause and buffer for some time, the service was completely useable for looking the net, watching the occasional video, and texting. Doing precise pace exams, I acquired round 130 Mbps in most conditions, although in a single random spot, I managed to get 246 Mbps. Strolling round that normal neighborhood later, I wasn’t capable of get anyplace near these speeds once more.

Whereas 130 Mbps is okay for my functions, it’s solidly LTE-tier and never precisely what you’d anticipate from a community being touted as “cloud-native Good 5G.” What provides? Effectively, the one Dish towers I’ve present in my metropolis are utilizing the n71 band to offer service. When it comes to 5G, this can be a comparatively “low” band, which means it’s optimized for vary as an alternative of efficiency. As PCMag’s Sascha Segan points out, Dish does have the rights to make use of the n66 band as nicely. Whereas that spectrum in all probability wouldn’t match the efficiency of the C-Band waves carriers like AT&T and Verizon are touting, it’d a minimum of be quicker than n71. CellMapper information, although, the one place anybody operating the app has related to an n66 tower from Dish is in Las Vegas, which has been a testing ground for the community.

I’d guess that for lots of people, although, the efficiency I noticed can be completely acceptable — particularly on the $30-per-month for limitless every part Dish is charging proper now. Whereas it’s not precisely comparable, AT&T’s least-expensive limitless plan begins at $50.

However there are another indicators that this can be a new service. Battery life on my Genesis telephone is horrible. The S22 is known to have relatively poor battery life, however there have been a number of days I needed to cost mine twice, even when I had barely used it. One evening, I went to mattress with my telephone sitting at round 20 p.c battery. Once I awoke round six hours later, it was utterly lifeless.

There are a few components I believe may very well be in charge. One is the truth that I virtually at all times have the telephone disconnected from Wi-Fi as a result of the Undertaking Genesis app — which presents perks to early clients — makes you utilize mobile if you wish to get factors for the varied issues it asks you to do (make telephone calls, textual content individuals, browse web sites, play video games, watch movies). This is sensible, on condition that the aim of the app is to check the community, however I typically overlook to show Wi-Fi again on, making the telephone depend on battery-hungry mobile.

Then, there’s Dish’s “Community Companion” app, which the corporate tells me is pre-installed to assist ship data about your expertise utilizing the community; issues like should you drop a name (one thing I haven’t skilled but, although there are stories of telephone calls on Dish’s community not being so great in Las Vegas) or how your gadget is acting on the community. It doesn’t appear to do this very effectively, as Android’s built-in battery monitoring system rated it as probably the most thirsty app on my telephone a number of instances. Dish did inform me it’s wanting into the problem, and utilization does appear to cool down once I’m roaming, nevertheless it’s positively no enjoyable to see a carrier-installed app hogging sources.

Whereas I definitely wouldn’t advocate Undertaking Genesis to, say, my members of the family who don’t like appearing as early adopters, I was stunned at how typically it simply felt like utilizing a standard cellphone. Sure, the battery points did make it really feel like a decidedly beta expertise, but when I simply handed my telephone to a random particular person on the road and advised them to surf round for a bit, I don’t assume they’d guess it was operating on what’s primarily a model new sort of community.

A variety of that, after all, is due to the truth that Dish falls again to AT&T’s community while you go away its protection space. It’s additionally due to the truth that I’ve comparatively gentle wants for my telephone — drag-racing the Undertaking Genesis S22 with my Verizon-powered iPhone Mini yielded some fairly embarrassing outcomes for Dish, particularly for the reason that iPhone was normally operating on LTE and never 5G. However in concept, Dish goes to get higher as time goes on when the corporate begins bringing new spectrum on-line (which, once more, it’s legally required to do). Maybe the boundaries will get even additional away from my day by day life.