October 8, 2024
As a leading wireless internet solution provider, we at Metro Wireless have deployed thousands of LTE-based cellular routers for clients across the nation!
Those connections have served a variety of use-cases, including reliable primary and failover internet connections. Construction sites, wireless backup, rural locations, temporary needs, and more are all reasons why your commercial or government site might have an LTE-based wireless internet connection.
HOWEVER, for the last two years, Metro Wireless has transitioned to predominantly deploying the latest and greatest 5G routers, rather than legacy LTE-only routers.
Most of the big carrier networks– Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile– have spent billions upgrading their US cell tower infrastructure to be 5G capable. It hence makes sense for our clients to consider upgrading their aging and legacy LTE-only network equipment and service.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss the main reasons why users should consider upgrading their LTE equipment and network hardware to 5G, which include:
The main attention grabber for 5G networks across all three Tier 1 cellular carriers (i.e., Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) has been the vastly enhanced download speeds that 5G technology enables versus legacy 4G and LTE networks.
In most cases, we’re seeing at least doubled download speeds when clients upgrade their LTE routers and modems to the newer 5G routers!
5G modems and the upgraded carrier network have enabled network hardware to get way faster download speeds.
The fastest speed test we’ve observed in the field was 600Mbps download speeds!
While we can’t promise every site will obtain 600Mbps, we’re seeing on average most sites getting at least 80Mbps downloads, whereas most of our LTE-based wireless internet clients were observing about 30Mbps downloads.
Clients who use wireless internet as their sole and/or primary connection likely benefit from the fastest possible download speeds because they’re likely doing or experiencing the following:
Clients who use wireless internet as their failover connection also likely benefit from the fastest possible download speeds.
In this use case, a user's primary internet connection is most likely a dedicated and faster connection, and hence the failover coverage ratio– defined as the ratio of their failover internet speed to their primary internet speed– needs to be comparable.
Otherwise, a too-slow download failover connection is useless when the primary internet goes down!
As mentioned above, we at Metro Wireless call this the ‘coverage ratio’.
Clients with modern network usage needs such as cloud based applications, UCaaS/VoIP and PoS transactions need to compare and consider the download speeds on their primary connection versus their wireless failover connection.
A failover internet connection that isn’t fast enough to support its users or applications isn’t doing the job!
Many of our clients have cited the material benefit of increased upload speeds when they upgraded from LTE to 5G based wireless internet.
While drastically faster download speeds get all the attention of 5G, faster upload speeds are way more important to some of our clients!
From our observations across hundreds of client sites upgrading from LTE to 5G wireless internet, we often see that internet upload speeds more than double from an average of 10Mbps to an average of 20Mbps!
While a 10Mbps improvement in upload speed may seem trivial to some users, many of our clients make the jump from LTE to 5G for this reason alone.
Clients who fall into the category of desiring and benefiting from faster upload speeds include:
While the above use cases and client types will benefit the most from upgraded upload speeds via a new 5G router deployment, we find that all clients benefit from achieving faster wireless internet upload speeds.
The most surprising improvement our clients experience when upgrading to a 5G router is that internet latency is typically halved versus their old LTE-based cellular connection. As you know, lower latency is better. As opposed to download and upload internet speeds, think of latency like a golf score.
Why does this matter? Latency, sometimes described as ping, can be summarized as the amount of time it takes for a user’s device (internet traffic) to reach its destination (e.g., Google cloud servers, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom).
The less time it takes for a client/user device to reach its destination and back, the ‘snappier’ and more pleasant and productive a user’s internet experience is!
Lower latency enhances an internet connection by making a user’s device feel faster when navigating web pages, and also drastically reducing lag or dropouts on video (e.g., Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet, Webex) conference calls.
Say goodbye to frustrating delays and lags during your next video call!
For the same reasons that reduced latency helps reduce lag and dropouts for video conference calls, reduced latency also materially improves the experience for users with hosted VoIP phone systems.
Delays, voice jitter, and other lags and dropouts diminish when latency is reduced via an upgraded 5G internet connection versus an LTE connection.
Legacy LTE routers from the common hardware manufacturers like Peplink and Cradlepoint use LTE-modem chipsets that are beyond obsolete.
Commonly denoted by the LTE modem ‘category’, we often upgrade clients to 5G from older LTE modems that are Category 4, Category 6, or Category 12.
The higher the category, the more adept the LTE modem chipset is in achieving faster internet throughput and lower latency.
For example, our field observations have revealed that most Category 4 and 6 modems typically don’t exceed 20Mbps download and 5Mbps upload throughput speeds. Latency is typically volatile on these modems, and usually isn’t low enough to support video calls or hosted UCaaS/VoIP phone calls.
Category (CAT) 12 LTE modems typically achieve 30Mbps downloads and 10Mbps upload speeds, with latency usually okay to support hosted voice/VoIP calls and video conferencing.
While newer Category 12 LTE modems are obviously a strong improvement over Category 4 and Category 6 modems, all of our 5G modems ALSO come embedded with Category 20 LTE modems!
These improved CAT 20 LTE modems produce the fastest speeds and lowest latency in areas where the cell towers haven’t upgraded to 5G!
When upgrading our clients from LTE to 5G router hardware (e.g., from Peplink and Cradlepoint), we still run into unique site deployments where the local cellular towers have not yet upgraded the network hardware to 5G.
These towers are usually located in rural areas where Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile have not deemed it worthwhile to invest in upgraded network infrastructure.
So while some users may believe there isn’t any benefit to upgrading their legacy LTE router to a 5G route, we still recommend it for the following reasons:
Even if your deployment location is in an area without 5G connectivity and access today, our newer 5G-based equipment will boost speeds in LTE-only areas, and your local cell tower will likely be upgraded within the next one to two years anyway.
Both our clients using LTE wireless internet for primary as well as failover WAN connections benefit dramatically in upgrading to our 5G internet service.
Users will benefit from faster DOWNLOAD speeds in order to:
Users will benefit from faster UPLOAD speeds in order to:
5G typically has half the latency of LTE (remember lower latency is better), and results in:
This benefits users relying on their cellular-based wireless internet connection for making video conference calls (e.g., Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, Zoom) and VoIP phone calls.
Newer Category 20 LTE modems come embedded in all of our 5G modems and wireless internet services.
So even users deploying wireless internet in LTE only areas will benefit from enhanced performance versus their existing CAT/Category 4, 6, or 12 modems.
Lower latency and faster throughput speeds will be observed for these users, and even then it’s only a matter of time until their local tower gets upgraded to 5G, future proofing their deployment!
If you’re interested in learning more about what we can offer you for 5G wireless internet service– across primary and failover usage– please reach out to us at sales@metrowireless.com!
During our conversation, your Account Manager will review your upgrade options, as well as perform a desktop site survey.
During this site survey, we’ll confirm the following for each site location address you provide us:
Based on this information, not only could we upgrade your existing router and internet service to 5G, but a carrier swap (e.g., from Verizon to T-Mobile) could make sense for you!
As the carrier-agnostic provider (we partner with Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, and US Cellular), Metro Wireless will always recommend the best carrier at each of your sites.
You can trust us to do a great job for your wireless internet needs!
Tyler Hoffman
