Survey shows consumers are very dissatisfied with 5G and cellular network quality

According to reports, Waveform released a survey on 5G applications among consumers in the United States, which showed that more than two-thirds of users are not satisfied with the current 5G technology, and do not even understand what benefits 5G will bring to them. Users are not very positive about upgrading to 5G, which is basically the same as the situation in China.

[[321586]]

Consumers still not enjoying 5G benefits

Regardless of how much money is spent on 5G marketing, Americans currently seem to be unable to fully understand the benefits of 5G. In fact, only a third (32.8%) of US consumers understand “very clearly” that they will benefit from 5G. Similar uncertainty among consumers has been reported before, regardless of the increase in the adoption of connected smart home devices.

On the other hand, Sprint and T-Mobile customers seem to be more enthusiastic about the fifth-generation wireless communication technology, with 19% of Sprint users and 22% of T-Mobile customers saying they are "very excited" about 5G. In contrast, only 16% and 12% of AT&T and Verizon customers, respectively, are excited about the technology.

Consumers increasingly want better home signal services

Less than a third of respondents (29.3%) said their home cellular signal was “very good,” compared to 40.3% who reported this in the 2018 survey. Based on this significant decrease in a relatively short period of time, Waveform hypothesizes that “user expectations for the quality of their cellular network service are significantly outpacing the rate at which networks are being upgraded.”

Verizon topped the survey in terms of overall customer cell coverage satisfaction, with 38% of users saying their home signal was "very good." When asked the same question, only about a quarter of T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T users said their home signal was "very good."

In summary, since the construction of 5G network infrastructure has just started, the signal coverage capability is far inferior to that of 4G network; at the same time, 5G is more designed to solve commercial needs, such as telemedicine, unmanned driving, VR/AR, etc. For ordinary consumer-level application needs, whether it is pictures, texts or videos, 4G can basically solve them, and the experience is not much different from 5G; coupled with the current relatively high 5G network charges, many consumers stay away.