Las Vegas (United States) (AFP)

Expected by the tech world like the messiah, 5G has finally arrived - or at least, operators have started to deploy it, essentially using existing infrastructure. But the process will take several years, especially in a country as huge as the United States.

American 5G exists in several flavors. At very high frequency, users can expect very fast speeds - of the order of one Gigabyte per second - but it is better to be right next to the antenna, because the so-called "millimeter" waves do not propagate far and are limited by all kinds of obstacles (walls, rain ...).

Verizon has chosen to deploy this type of 5G, starting with a few very limited areas in around thirty city centers. These networks are more like fixed broadband internet without going through fiber.

The lower the frequencies, the better they diffuse. Operators using the 5G low-frequency spectrum therefore cover more territory, but provide significantly lower speeds.

This is the option chosen by T-Mobile, which ensures that it can potentially serve 200 million people in more than 5,000 cities. At speeds only 20% faster than on 4G, according to industry experts.

"T-Mobile is the biggest deployment, because they use the same antennas as their 4G network," notes Eliane Fiolet, co-founder of Ubergizmo, a site on technological trends. "They have not installed new infrastructure."

At & T, another large American operator, offers a "5G E" (improved 4G), a short 5G, available in twenty cities, and a 5G +, very high frequency only for companies, in demarcated areas.

Finally, Sprint has positioned itself on medium frequencies, waves which are also of interest to AT&T and Verizon because they represent a good compromise between the area covered and performance.

- The beginnings of the beginning -

"We are still at the very beginning of 5G," said Steve Koenig vice-president of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organizes the annual tech fair in Las Vegas (January 7-10, 2020). "The networks remain very limited in terms of coverage and power."

Not to mention that you must have a compatible smartphone. In 2019, 1.6 million 5G phones were sold in the United States, according to CTA. It expects 20 million in 2020 and 133 million in 2023.

Worldwide, more than 40 operators have started deployment, in around twenty countries. In the lead, South Korea, but also China and Japan, which will host the Olympic Games in 2020.

"In Asia, they've done a great job of coordinating and marketing to consumers," said Jefferson Wang, specialist in this new generation of mobile phones at Accenture. "The operators launched the 5G networks together, several 5G smartphones were available and above all there are specific applications for 5G. At this stage, in the United States, there is no specific use, apart from the better connectivity. "

After the phones will come many other connected objects, such as laptops and tablets.

"It will be great to be able to be connected everywhere, without having to find wifi," says Mikako Kitagawa, analyst at Gartner. "But it all depends on the price of this service. Computers with LTE (improved 4G, editor's note) did not work because it was too expensive."

© 2020 AFP