{"id":95968,"date":"2025-02-18T18:57:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T18:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/5g-technology\/urban-vs-rural-5g-firstnet-spectrum-and-acquisitions\/"},"modified":"2025-02-18T18:57:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T18:57:02","slug":"urban-vs-rural-5g-firstnet-spectrum-and-acquisitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=95968","title":{"rendered":"Urban vs. rural 5G: FirstNet, spectrum and acquisitions"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon have taken \u2018very different approaches\u2019 on rural 5G expansion, Ookla finds<\/h2>\n

Over the past five years since launching 5G, the three national carriers have all expanded their rural 5G footprints. Each has taken a different strategy, however, driven primarily by their spectrum position\u2014and in particular, their midband holdings, according to new analysis from Ookla. <\/a><\/p>\n

Ookla looked at how the amount of time that 5G users spent on 5G networks has increased between 2019 to 2024. (That metric, the company noted, is impacted both by whether 5G coverage is available, as well as carriers\u2019 network policies, which might prioritize LTE usage for some tasks.)<\/p>\n

The benchmarking and analysis company found that T-Mobile US had the most 5G users\u2014across both rural and urban markets\u2014spending most of their time on 5G networks, followed by AT&T and then Verizon.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot
Image: Ookla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In breaking down the relative positions of the three national carriers, Ookla pointed to the following as boosting each one\u2019s rural 5G coverage:<\/p>\n

\u2013T-Mobile US<\/strong> got a jump on low- and midband 5G coverage by starting its rural 5G deployments with its 600 MHz holdings\u2014then, once it closed on its acquisition of Sprint, was able to quickly leverage a large amount of 2.5 GHz for 5G. The Sprint acquisition also included commitments from the carrier on rural coverage<\/a>. <\/p>\n

T-Mobile US\u2019 rural 5G coverage is likely to expand even further, Ookla noted, if its pending acquisition<\/a> of US Cellular\u2019s spectrum holdings, customers and retail stores is approved. <\/p>\n

\u2013AT&T<\/strong> has touted the fact that it was able to piggyback major network upgrades off of work done to deploy the FirstNet network across the country, including in rural areas, as part of a springboard to 5G<\/a>. \u201cBesides its reliance on FirstNet, AT&T also has deployed 5G across its low-band spectrum and is building out its mid-band 5G network,\u201d Ookla added. <\/p>\n

\u2013Verizon<\/strong> is significantly behind the other two carriers in its rural 5G availability, according to Ookla\u2019s assessment. While Ookla\u2019s numbers show more than 80% 5G availability for rural 5G users on T-Mobile US\u2019 network, and AT&T\u2019s top five states with rural 5G availability ranging from about 72-80% availability for users, Verizon rural 5G users access 5G networks less than 50% of the time. <\/p>\n

Verizon first deployed 5G via Dynamic Spectrum Sharing, which split available network resources between LTE and 5G (AT&T took this route early on as well). Verizon also pushed into rural markets through acquisitions in which it bought several of its small roaming partners<\/a> over the past few years. But those small carriers were not operating 5G networks, but LTE networks\u2014so the network assets didn\u2019t immediately contribute to rural 5G expansion for the carrier. Verizon also spent tens of billions of dollars on C-Band spectrum, but it just began talking about expanding C-Band coverage into rural and suburban markets last year\u2014and \u201cmost of Verizon\u2019s rural 5G coverage hinges on its C-band deployment,\u201d Ookla said.<\/p>\n

Verizon also has a stake in T-Mo\u2019s acquisition of US Cellular that would impact its rural deployments. Assuming the acquisition closes later this year as expected, Verizon will be able to buy about a billion dollars of UScellular\u2019s spectrum holdings<\/a> in 850 MHz, AWS and PCS. \u201cAlthough it\u2019s unclear where those licenses are located, it\u2019s likely that Verizon will use this spectrum to supplement its suburban and rural 5G coverage,\u201d Ookla said. <\/p>\n

Ookla breaks down top 5 states for rural 5G availability for each carrier<\/h2>\n

Ookla also assessed which states have the most rural 5G activity for each carrier, noting that the only two states which appear in all three carriers\u2019 top 10 for 5G availability are Nevada and Illinois, meaning that those two states \u201chave been a 5G focus for all three operators.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to Ookla, each carrier\u2019s leading states rural 5G availability are as follows:<\/p>\n

-T-Mobile US\u2019 top five states with the best rural 5G availability are Florida, Connecticut, Illinois, Delaware and Georgia. <\/p>\n

-AT&T\u2019s best rural 5G availability was in the states of Texas, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and California.<\/p>\n

-Verizon rural 5G users saw the greatest availability in the states of Ohio, Arkansas, Texas, New Jersey and Delaware.<\/p>\n

Read more details from Ookla here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon have taken \u2018very different approaches\u2019 on rural 5G expansion, Ookla finds Over the past five years since launching 5G, the three national carriers have all expanded their rural 5G footprints. Each has taken a different strategy, however, driven primarily by their spectrum position\u2014and in particular, their midband holdings, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12020],"tags":[24917,45486,4243,14939,5347],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-95968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5g-technology","tag-acquisitions","tag-firstnet","tag-rural","tag-spectrum","tag-urban"],"yoast_head":"\nUrban vs. rural 5G: FirstNet, spectrum and acquisitions - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=95968\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Urban vs. rural 5G: FirstNet, spectrum and acquisitions - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon have taken \u2018very different approaches\u2019 on rural 5G expansion, Ookla finds Over the past five years since launching 5G, the three national carriers have all expanded their rural 5G footprints. 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