No Verizon 5G Ultra love for Pixels

[Davidoo]

Once again, us Pixel 6 and Pro users left behind. The Verizon Ultra C-band turned on today and my friends with iPhones get the 5GUW designation on their info bar, and we get nothing, even though the 6 is capable. I know they said a modem update would arrive "in the coming weeks" but what does that mean? I'm in Phoenix and have noticed them working on towers all around town over the last few weeks and I know the Ultra is available because others in my office are seeing it today. Just ridiculous for the price we paid.

I've been a huge Pixel fanboy since the OG Pixel 1, but this is getting old. This is their flagship device and should have been capable for the C-band on Verizon, and I assume AT&T as well. If they don't have their $h!t together very quickly, going to Samsung.

 

[stevenfstein]

I was picking up my daughter from LGA airport last Sunday and was in the waiting lot for a bit. Looked at my phone and 5Guw was displayed. Tried speedtest and download speeds were about 1800, so it seems that it is turned on and working but not really in a whole lot of areas.

Best... Steve

 

[anon(40376)]

The C-band is only available on certain Verizon plans....
Do you have the correct plan?

As for "coming weeks." I guess that could include anytime from when you read it till freezes. (Yes, there is such a place...Hell Michigan, SW of Detroit.
"Verizon, which will offer C-band under its Ultra Wideband (or UW) branding, will be limiting access just to a handful of its unlimited options. This includes the Do More, Play More or Get More plans sold today as well as the older Above and Beyond unlimited options from a few years ago.

If you don't have one of these plans, you won't be able to take advantage of the faster network even if you have a phone that supports it."

 

[Davidoo]

I was picking up my daughter from LGA airport last Sunday and was in the waiting lot for a bit. Looked at my phone and 5Guw was displayed. Tried speedtest and download speeds were about 1800, so it seems that it is turned on and working but not really in a whole lot of areas.

Best... Steve

Yes, my P6P gets the UW if I'm in that part of the city, like the airport and downtown. That is the mmWave that we were always supposed to get. For the new C-band they always said we needed and update to get that, and we don't have the update yet. Some flagship. iPhone and Samsung have it.

 

[Davidoo]

The C-band is only available on certain Verizon plans....
Do you have the correct plan?

As for "coming weeks." I guess that could include anytime from when you read it till View attachment 340635 freezes. (Yes, there is such a place...Hell Michigan, SW of Detroit.
"Verizon, which will offer C-band under its Ultra Wideband (or UW) branding, will be limiting access just to a handful of its unlimited options. This includes the Do More, Play More or Get More plans sold today as well as the older Above and Beyond unlimited options from a few years ago.

If you don't have one of these plans, you won't be able to take advantage of the faster network even if you have a phone that supports it."

Yes, I have the Do More plan. They just need to send the update sooner and give a date. As you said, the coming weeks could mean forever.

 

[TiMar99]

What if you bought a P6 from VZ, still need an update?

 

[Davidoo]

What if you bought a P6 from VZ, still need an update?

Yes, you do. I spoke to a Verizon rep. If course they said Google has to send the update and they never know when that will happen. Their guidance is to tell people it's set to arrive "in the coming weeks." So much for Pixels being on the cutting edge of software updates.

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

I was picking up my daughter from LGA airport last Sunday and was in the waiting lot for a bit. Looked at my phone and 5Guw was displayed. Tried speedtest and download speeds were about 1800, so it seems that it is turned on and working but not really in a whole lot of areas.

Best... Steve

Oh the irony. You received the 5Guw while at the airport.

 

[CHILLYWILL_95831]

Yes, you do. I spoke to a Verizon rep. If course they said Google has to send the update and they never know when that will happen. Their guidance is to tell people it's set to arrive "in the coming weeks." So much for Pixels being on the cutting edge of software updates.

Pixel fans, please stop morphing into Sammy fanboy mentality. You're starting to show your collectively fragile egos. What is the really big deal to not have UW, which depending on what block you live on may be available to others and not you on one day and then available to you and not them on other days? 5G really is about that wonky everywhere right now. Heck, your phone will say 5g and if you flip it to LTE, it would literally get better results than 5g! Is it really so serious that you have to sound like a whiny baby?

"Other phones get it, but I don't and that's not fair WAHH! Pixel fans always get treated wrong! WAHH "

I'm also a pixel fan, but my self worth is not tied to my cell phone. Can't we just leave those idiosyncracies to iphone and Sammy fanboys?

 

[Davidoo]

Pixel fans, please stop morphing into Sammy fanboy mentality. You're starting to show your collectively fragile egos. What is the really big deal to not have UW, which depending on what block you live on may be available to others and not you on one day and then available to you and not them on other days? 5G really is about that wonky everywhere right now. Heck, your phone will say 5g and if you flip it to LTE, it would literally get better results than 5g! Is it really so serious that you have to sound like a whiny baby?

"Other phones get it, but I don't and that's not fair WAHH������! Pixel fans always get treated wrong! WAHH ������"

I'm also a pixel fan, but my self worth is not tied to my cell phone. Can't we just leave those idiosyncracies to iphone and Sammy fanboys?

We're talking about the new C-band 5G here, not the mmWave UW version that is mostly at airports and downtown areas and won't even go through a tree or wall. That's what you are talking about and I agree it isn't a big deal.
This new 5G Ultra turned on by Verizon yesterday is many times faster than 4G and widely available everywhere where I live in Phoenix and in most major cities. They have known this is coming for months and still haven't pushed an update to enable the radio band. If you are going to criticize me, at least get it right.

 

[Davidoo]

Was out with my 70 plus year old realtor today looking at some houses. She has an Samsung S21 for nearly a year. She had to download the Open Door app. She's not tech savvy, so I helped. The app downloaded and installed almost instantly, so much that I thought it didn't work. I looked on her info bar and it showed 5GUW. We were completely out of town in far north Phoenix, so she was getting the new C-band UW on a year-old device.

Just seems ridiculous to me that my P6P, just a couple of months old, Google's flagship device, that I bought through Verizon, can't get what the older Sammy gets. Making me rethink ever getting another Pixel. Verizon claims they are still trying to "certify" the P6 series. Must be some sort of problem with the lower quality modem they used.

 

[sulla1965]

Yeah C-band 5G is different than mmWave. Not as fast, but is more widespread and still much faster than 4g. I'm sure both will get Verizon C- band 5G via a software update.

 

[ras47]

I'm in northern NJ about 40 minutes from NYC and haven't seen 5G UW anywhere yet.

 

[Aredubu]

Oh the irony. You received the 5Guw while at the airport.

That's funny!

 

[anon(40376)]

Oh the irony. You received the 5Guw while at the airport.

LaGuardia Airport has MMWAVE service, so receiving 5GUW is not surprising at all. Doesn't mean it is the C-band service.

 

[Poolman55]

How about removing your VZW sim and trying to get the update. If you get the update,, then put the sim back in and go from there.

 

[Davidoo]

This is just a Verizon issue until they "certify" the modem on the Pixel 6 series to work with C-band. I suspect that the hardware is already configured for it, but they're not letting us connect to the towers until certified.

 

[CHILLYWILL_95831]

We're talking about the new C-band 5G here, not the mmWave UW version that is mostly at airports and downtown areas and won't even go through a tree or wall. That's what you are talking about and I agree it isn't a big deal.
This new 5G Ultra turned on by Verizon yesterday is many times faster than 4G and widely available everywhere where I live in Phoenix and in most major cities. They have known this is coming for months and still haven't pushed an update to enable the radio band. If you are going to criticize me, at least get it right.

Ok, I get that having the extra speed is important and I agree that it can definitely make a difference if you're trying to stream high bit rate music or hd quality videos, but after that, does having UW capacity really make the much of a difference in your everyday use? And btw, I was streaming hd stuff in 4g LTE just fine!

 

[anon(40376)]

In my opinion, 5G does not mean that much to cell phones vs. a good 4G LTE connection. It will help with commerce that depends on high-speed communications, allow for more users on the same bands allowing for greater expansion of the networks. It is, however, the next generation of the advance of cellular technology. So people want it and if they cannot get it, they get a big teed off. And honestly, if I had purchased a phone that was supposed to receive all the 5G bands, and didn't, I would be a bit peed off too.

I'm also the person who believes that all features on the phone should work and there better not be a reason to have to disable one feature to allow other features to work. That's like telling me the truck I purchased cannot have the compression brake work if the radio is on.

The higher frequencies and speeds of C-band and mmWave are designed for military use and for the home to replace cable.

 

[Davidoo]

Thanks for some great responses. I'm sure Verizon will "certify" us for C-band soon.

On a related note, I happened to be near the Arizona Cardinals NFL stadium Saturday and did pickup the mmWave 5G. Wow! Unbelievable. My ESPN app actually loaded fast and played videos instantly, far faster than 4G. I ran a speedtest and got download of over 2.8gb/sec. At the time the 5GUW showed on the info bar, but when I snagged the screenshot of the Speedtest app I was back on regular 5G. Screenshot attached.