Should you change your 5G package? You will understand after reading this!

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Recently, the three major operators officially announced the commercial use of 5G and announced their respective 5G tariff packages.

Not surprisingly, the officially announced package content is exactly the same as the content previously leaked within the operator.

After the 5G package was announced, there were mixed reactions from all sides. Some people thought it was expensive, while others thought it was cheap. In general, more people thought it was expensive.

Seeing that everyone is discussing so heatedly, Xiaozaojun couldn’t help but stand up today and express his views on 5G packages.

Although the 5G package is simply a price list, the information hidden behind it is actually much more than just a few numbers. (Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken so long for the operators to officially launch it.)

First, let’s take a look at the specific contents of the 5G packages of the three major operators.

For easy comparison, I made a price comparison table as follows:

Can you see it clearly? I won't put a watermark on it. You are welcome to steal the picture.

As mentioned in the previous report, the price packages of the three major operators are very similar, and many of the packages are even exactly the same. In addition, the higher the price, the cheaper the average traffic price. This is not surprising, as it has always been the case.

The biggest difference between the packages and the previous ones is that there are more speed limits - different speed limits have different upper limits. China Mobile and China Unicom have two speed limits: 500M and 1000M. China Telecom is more exaggerated, listing 4 speed limits, with 200M and 300M added.

Since the packages of the three operators are basically the same, we will take China Mobile as an example to make a horizontal comparison of 4G and 5G packages:

Note: Because the package also includes voice, broadband, SMS and other content, the average traffic price is only for comparison reference

In short, the price difference between low-priced (198 and below) 4G and 5G packages is not much, and 5G packages are slightly cheaper. However, at high prices, the difference between the two is obvious, and the average price of 5G traffic can be as low as less than 2 yuan/G.

It is worth mentioning that the above tariff operators can also offer discounts (users who have successfully made an appointment and have a network age of 5 years or more can enjoy a 30% discount on China Mobile's half-year 5G package, and users with less than 5 years of network age can enjoy a 20% discount on half-year 5G packages). In this way, the total cost is even cheaper.

So, does it mean that the operators' 5G packages are very powerful and worth joining as soon as possible?

Not really.

From my personal perspective, the standard of this package is far from my expectations.

For ordinary users, using 5G means using the MBB mobile broadband feature. In layman's terms, it means using the network speed.

The biggest improvement of 5G over 4G is the significant increase in network speed. This increase is not 5% or 10%, but several times or even nearly 10 times.

It is not surprising that 5G speed tests exceed 1000Mbps

With the rapid increase in Internet speed, it is inappropriate to adopt billing standards close to those of 4G.

For example, a taxi in the city costs 3 yuan per kilometer. If I take the high-speed rail, should it be 3 yuan per kilometer, or even 6 or 9 yuan? In fact, the price of high-speed rail is about 0.43 yuan per kilometer.

Although watching the same movie and consuming the same amount of data, 5G will be cheaper than 4G. But if you actually use it, you will find that the same 30G is not durable at all under the 5G network. Maybe you accidentally updated an app or cached a movie, and in just a dozen seconds, several G of data was lost.

Many people are definitely keen on speed testing after getting a 5G phone. Under 5G network, each speed test normally consumes at least 2G. If you have a 129 yuan 30G package, you can calculate how many times it will be enough to test it?

The 2-3 times difference in the average traffic price is not the normal setting for 5G packages.

Of course, the operators also know that this tariff package is not cheap for 5G, but if you think about it carefully, the reason why they set such a price that is a bit "discouraging" does have a deeper purpose.

First of all, the operators themselves have just started to build 5G networks, and currently have very limited coverage (there are 5.19 million 4G base stations in China, and there will be only 130,000 5G base stations by the end of the year. Moreover, 5G coverage is weak, and there will be many more base stations than 4G). Therefore, they do not want a large number of 5G users to flock in, which will bring great pressure to the existing network. Previously, operators sold a large number of unlimited packages such as Dawang Card, which has overwhelmed the network.

Not only is the access network (base station) unable to cope with the increase in traffic, the current 5G bearer network (transmission resources) also does not have the capacity to cope with the increase in traffic.

If ultra-low-priced 5G packages are launched at the very beginning, users' network experience will inevitably decline significantly, and it will definitely damage the brand of 5G.

Moreover, it is easier to lower prices than to raise them. If you start with a low price, it will be difficult to raise the price later. However, starting with a high price will leave enough room for price reduction later.

Operators set a relatively high threshold for 5G packages, with the intention of differentiating users and widening the user hierarchy. Low-priced users have low ARPU (average revenue per user), and they cannot make much money from them, so they simply do not guide them to use 5G. High-priced users have high ARPU and are willing to pay for a better experience, so they are guided to become the first batch of 5G users. This can also make 5G a high-quality network and gain good reputation and value.

From a marketing perspective, this makes sense.

So, does it mean that “poor people” cannot use 5G? Actually not. Operators have policies and we users have countermeasures.

There is a better way to "consume" 5G. It's very simple. Just buy a 5G phone and keep the 4G package unchanged. After personal verification, 4G package + 5G phone can fully access the 5G network. However, the network speed will be limited to 300Mbps.

Guys, don't underestimate 300Mbps, this speed is much better than 4G! At present, although the theoretical speed of our 4G can reach 150M (FDD, without carrier aggregation), under normal circumstances, your speed test is only 30Mbps, right?

Changing to a 5G phone can improve performance by nearly 10 times!

For watching movies, playing games, and browsing Tik Tok, a speed of 300Mbps is enough to give you a blast.

Speaking of 5G mobile phones, Xiaozaojun still wants to remind everyone: Most 5G mobile phones on the market do not support SA independent networking. I have said before that the advantages of 5G can only be fully utilized under SA networking. NSA networking is mainly used for transition.

Also, everyone, please note! Currently, most 5G mobile phones on the market have external 5G basebands, which are not integrated into the SoC chip.

Don’t understand? It doesn’t matter. Just remember that it’s best to wait until the second quarter of next year to buy a 5G phone. The technology is more mature and perfect, and the price has dropped to a reasonable range.

To sum up, you don’t need to care too much about the operator’s 5G packages, and don’t rush to change them.

This package is definitely temporary, and we will wait and see until next year. If you want to try it out, you can buy a 5G phone from a certain brand that supports SA/NSA networking, or wait a little while for a 5G phone with a non-external 5G baseband to come out, buy one, and continue using the 4G package.

If you have a campus card or various low-priced IoT cards, it would be even better, so be sure to keep them! Low-priced packages + 5G mobile phones will definitely improve the network experience without adding too much extra expenses.

How about it, have you all got the correct way to open 5G?