Everyone's favorite performance-artist-CEO has put up another amazing video about his company's plans for 5G. We announced T-Mobile's recent purchase of whole swaths of the 600MHz spectrum, and today CEO John Legere announced in one of his regular videos exactly how it plans on using it. Some of it will be going to expand current 4G LTE capacity and penetration, but a portion is to be set aside for their future 5G implementation.

By "5G" T-Mobile really means 5G, too. It isn't just bad marketing, in contrast to some other carriers. No re-badged LTE, and it isn't a short-range 5G implementation like AT&T has discussed. This is a real, long-term, long-range plan. But, real to the degree it has no immediate fruits.

There are also a couple of points made in the video that clear some misconceptions about 5G. For instance, there is no such thing as 5G spectrum, as some companies might be using in marketing materials. Radio is radio, and spectrum is spectrum. Some are better or worse at penetrating different materials (as a result of awesome wiki-hole science), but it's all just a medium. The frequencies can be used by different standards and technologies, and the new high-frequency double-digit GHz stuff being talked about by companies like AT&T is just a new set of frequencies. And, frankly, they come with huge drawbacks like short range and penetration problems.

I do actually recommend watching Legere's video. He's a pretty excitable and hilarious dude, but he's also brutally honest about his opinions. It may be marketing, it is definitely a performance, but it's unarguably endearing. Just take it all with an appropriate grain of salt.

Source: T-Mobile