- [Narrator] This is the true story of one tech addicted journalist who moved into a motor home for 24 hours to find out through a
series of challenges, that 5G could power all of
the home devices at once. - Alright, come on in, back here we've got my
living room, bedroom and so many gadgets. All right, so this isn't
really a reality TV show. Now let's talk about what's
happening here in this 5G RV trademark pending. See that pole. That's a Verizon 5G small cell. And inside the RV is a
Verizon one plus eight 5G smartphone. It's getting crazy fast
speeds from the tower. 10 times faster than my home wifi In fact, also inside the RV, 15 five other gadgets that are being powered by 5G via the phones hotspot feature. Yes, all of them are
getting 5G connectivity. So why the heck did I do this? Well, see, I live here in Jersey city. Which is just being lit up with 5G service from all the major U.S carriers. But the fastest type of 5G called millimeter wave requires that you be within a few
hundred feet from the cell site to get top speeds. And you guessed it my real
home, not next to a pole yet. Yes the speeds are insanely
fast, but on a smartphone, they're not really that helpful. I mean, how often do you
need to download five movies in five minutes? where I really need
these speeds are at home where I have multiple connected devices and multiple family members using them. So that's what I'm trying to test in here, in a series of daunting
home bandwidth challenges. This is a wall? But within a movable home. And this in here is the bathroom, with full 5G service. But Before the challenges, you have to understand the
complicated world of 5G. buckle up. There are two types of 5G
in the U.S at the moment, millimeter wave 5G named for its high frequency wave
forms is insanely fast, at least six times faster
than 4G in my tasks, and 10 times faster than my home wifi. But the coverage is very limited. You need to be within a few
hundred feet or so of a cell site to get the signal and the speed. It doesn't penetrate walls
or other obstacles very well, rise in at and t mobile are putting up millimeter wave cells
throughout the country. By this one, I got 1300 megabits per
second download speeds on Verizon's network. On my home wifi, I get a
hundred megabits per second. That 5G speed is bonkers. Then there's sub six name for his set of frequencies
below six gigahertz. It's not as fast as millimeter wave, but it was faster than four G LTE tests. And it's more practical because
it works inside buildings and the coverage is more widespread. for now, only at and t
and T mobile have sub six, including here in Jersey city. Verizon says it plans to
roll out its sub six network before the end of the year in the U.S. in downtown Jersey city at and t sub six, coverage averaged 80 to
90 megabits per second. And T-Mobile sub six, got
120 megabits per second. Dope, Pretty good. At least when I could find
strong 5G signal strength, regardless of carrier, you need a new 5G phone
to get these speeds, okay. Onto the challenges, challenge one, video streaming. To simulate my home, I fare it up frozen two on the TV, two, four K video
streams on these laptops, FaceTime call to my mom. - You look great. - And of course, for security, I installed the connected
doorbell and all three networks. The streams were good and
the video call was clear. To really up the 5G stakes. I added in a call to my dad and placed another video
call to my colleagues. How do I look now? - Now you look very clear. - This test was hit or miss. It was hard to tell what issues
were caused by the network or the phone's hotspots. you can't see me? These really aren't meant to
connect 10 devices at a time. Plus some of the carriers plans have data caps on hotspot usage. And slows down speeds once you exceeded. challenge two, gaming. I don't know a ton about gaming. - Oh yeah. Is that good? teammate? No, I got a puncher, - So I made my producer,
Kenny, a world renowned gamer. Just kidding. He only plays on the weekends, jump in and start playing apex legends. First on Verizon's
millimeter wave network. I know I'm a horrible boss. - Listen, I was impressed. The game played better than
it did on my wired home broadband connection by a long shot. There's no rubber banding
where you lag warped from one place to another and no wag icons. Finally, we can gain in the Bush. - I was similarly
impressed with the graphics and speed on the Oculus quest VR headset menus loaded super fast, large games downloaded within minutes. And I attended a live in person VR event. Even while Kenny was playing on the Xbox on the same network. Verizon's network held strong
T-Mobile's 5G performed similarly, but at and t's was shaky. Don't blame the internet and Kenny complain The game was lagging. Even when we tried to
move to a better location, challenged three,uploading. Uploading a one gigabyte folder to Google drive took six to seven minutes on each 5G network. On my home wifi It took
four and a half minutes. The most I was able to
notch was about 60 megabits on the upload on Verizon. My home network has a
hundred megabits per second on upload speeds. So what did we learn here today? We learned that 5G is very, very fast and a lot more useful when
you can multiple gadgets to that network, than
just say a single phone. Of course, this isn't the
intended use of 5G yet, and it will take time for the
carriers to improve coverage and release home routers and
hotspots for this type of use. Verizon already has a 5G
home offering in some markets and T-Mobile is gearing up to do the same. Of course you'll probably end
up paying more for it all too. But for now, if I owned an RV, I put out my family vacations
one 5G pole at a time. This was fun, but I miss my family and
I would like to go home.
