Talk:List of 5G NR networks

Adding N66 for Verizon, USA?

https://www.pcmag.com/news/verizon-launches-nationwide-5g-expands-mmwave-to-55-cities https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-adds-spectrum-faster-speeds-better-performance-greater-availability-5g-uw — Preceding unsigned comment added by SoNic67 (talk • contribs) 14:33, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. ebahapo (talk) 19:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding sources/references

@Nightwalker-87

Is it ok to add sources/references about further progress? Akshadev (talk) 11:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The references should support the information presented in the article. Citing network expansion supports no new information in the article, therefore, it’s not relevant. Also, WP:NOTREPOSITORY. ebahapo (talk) 16:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the specific question I'd personally prefer only to cite news on network expansion, if an existing source was not able to clarify whether there was an "official" launch. In other words: If a news on network expansion can be seen as the initial source for a (commercial) launch, then it should be added as a source. For all other cases I agree with ebahapo on WP:NOTREPOSITORY what is a valid argument indeed. So actually again we have not clear "yes" or "no" :-/, but hopefully a clear advice nevertheless. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 19:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Visual appearance in new vector skin (2022)

Hi. I noticed that with the new wiki "vector" skin (default since 2022) we find that screens are no longer efficiently filled with content and old settings on column width as used in tables like e.g. List of LTE networks in Europe seem to no longer have any effect on the visual appearance of this table. With the old "vector legacy" design this table does still look like as it was originally intended. Does anybody already have a workaround for this? In my eyes this is very annoying. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 11:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Trimming down the table width

There currently are just 7, 9 and 11 deployments for the n49, n40 and n41 bands, respectively. While the potential for growth in the n40 and n41 bands, with several spectrum authorities planning to allocate them for 5G, is clear, the potential for growth in the n49 band is less so, seemingly with its growth restricted to maybe just a couple more deployments in the near future in the countries where it's already been deployed, commercially or not. Yet, in terms of regions where n41 can be used rather than n7, its potential is somewhat limited, at least compared to n40's.

On the other hand, the table is rather wide and scrolling horizontally is a bit more cumbersome than scrolling vertically, especially in mobile devices. Therefore, would it make sense to trim down the table width by stipulating that only those bands with more than 10 deployments should count with their own column, otherwise figuring in the Others column? ebahapo (talk) 21:01, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I believe we can move the few 4.7GHz (n79) deployments to the column "Others" by now. Regarding horizontal scrolling: This is definitely not the only long table on wikipedia, so it shall be fine and we should preserve the current visual appearance. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 21:37, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Done at [1]. ebahapo (talk) 17:21, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

SaskTel now supports 5G 3500MHz n78

So I was going through the SaskTel website and noticed they support 5G 3500MHz

https://www.sasktel.com/wps/wcm/connect/content/home/wireless/coverage-and-travel/Network

https://support.sasktel.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/26176/kw/5g

The supported frequencies page makes no mention of it: https://support.sasktel.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/25812

The coverage map shows it in a few places. Can someone update the page?

Thanks, Urbanracer34 (talk) 13:50, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Done. Drahtlos (talk) 16:01, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

More info regarding SaskTel 5G

I was going through this page and I noticed one of the entries for SasTel have a question mark on it. I think it should show that n78 is active since July 2023. Sources are above if required. Can someone please look into it? Thanks, Urbanracer34 (talk) 15:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Too long

Should the countries be split among continents or among ITU zones? It's not as easy to determine the continent of some countries, but the ITU zones are quite well defined. I'd hesitate to split the article into other articles though. ebahapo (talk) 22:15, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

I would definitely not split this article, because maintenance of several articles/lists always involves even greater efforts to preserve and align common formatting and appearance. We have seen this with the 4G-related network lists already. Though updated frequently over the years, we still have no common formatting yet and there are frequent disputes regarding the criteria on how the split up should be done with respect to single countries. This is not helpful at all. Personally I may consider to stop further contribution and maintenance work should this approach be implemented. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 22:37, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

I see several advantages in a single table, such as when taking a broad look at the state of 5G around the world. Arguably, doing that by regions would be helpful too. However, this could be accomplished if countries could be listed in the current table in ITU zones or continents, while the column sorting options could be used to list them in whatever order.

On the other hand, given the note added to the article, the question could perhaps be if anything needs to be done at all. Regardless of how countries could be grouped, as is, the content of the article does address the purpose of the page. ebahapo (talk) 16:23, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

One may indeed think about sections related to continents/regions in combination with ITU-Regions (only taking into account the latter would not help most readers when searching for single countries). However this would lead to 3 sections and offer the opportunity to collapse sections to shorten the list when scrolling and may ease parallel editing in different parts of the list. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I created a proof of concept based on the UN geographical scheme for Oceania at [2]. If it's acceptable, then it can be redone. ebahapo (talk) 16:16, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks fine for me. However I'd keep a maximum of 5 references per row, thus the notes column should be slightly wider for better readability and we seem to have enough space here. The first row of references should continue to be used for general spectrum related references. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:39, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean in the last sentence? BTW, I copied the rows verbatim, so it beats me why the Notes column was so narrow. ebahapo (talk) 22:24, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

It would be great though, if we could wait with such a major change until next weekend to allow for a further maintenance review targeting formatting alignment. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 21:01, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

ebahapo: I'll let you know as soon as we can proceed with this. I'll do the mentioned editing this weekend. Just having a troublesome week @work. :-/ Nightwalker-87 (talk) 21:54, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I've just completed maintenance. You may now proceed. I'll not interact any further until your next reply here to avoid potential editing conflicts. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 12:09, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I published the section for Oceania. The Notes column looks messed up, though the rows in the new table are verbatim copies from the old one. On my browser, the Notes column in the old table also looks messed up now. As a matter of fact, removing the line breaks seems to result in the intended rendering, including on mobile: [3]. ebahapo (talk) 17:55, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Mainly looks good to me. The "Notes" column itself should be set to a fixed width, which would resolve some remaining issues of that kind. I do like the wiki-links to the UN geoschemes as well. This is a really useful attempt to avoid future discussions around that topic. One may additionally mention the respective ITU-Regions behind for even more clarity. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:07, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I finished splitting the countries among the five continents where 5G is deployed. If there's general agreement solely about the split, then note about the length of the article may be removed. ebahapo (talk) 15:24, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Should be fine. Thank you for contributing here. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Table of frequency bands

Can the header of table be made "pinned", so when we are scrolling down, the header of the table remains visible? SoNic67 (talk) 14:42, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I wish... If you have any idea to accomplish that, please let us know. ebahapo (talk) 22:37, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't have any idea here either. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

I tried this for the Africa section - have a look. I like it on my laptop but it does not appear to work on an Android phone (i.e. there it looks the same as before). Drahtlos (talk) 02:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

That's neat! Thank you. ebahapo (talk) 18:28, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this seems to have broken formatting regarding table frames. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:20, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Not WP:PROMO

Please, reconsider deleting references to carrier 5G FAQs which contain information about the bands that they use. ebahapo (talk) 16:36, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

As to my knowledge this is not a general problem, but there is no need to link to operator websites promoting services, solely for verifying FWA. I wouldn't consider it necessary to explicitly introduce such references for for every single case of that kind. Verification for frequencies in form of FAQ looks ok, if no alternative sources are available. This was not the context of the WP:PROMO reference. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:00, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Other bands

I simplified the column for other bands and methinks that it worked really well for Oceania, so I left it standing. When I tried the same for Europe though, when the deployment status of different bands is not the same, I tried different approaches. Note the row for A1 (AT) in:

1. [4], but it broke the template;
2. [5], which retains the original sub table;
3. [6], which retains the original sub table, but transposed vertically, which I left standing.

All in all, this new formatting helps to keep the table width down. Yet, the US with its convoluted band plan, may pose a challenge. Thoughts? ebahapo (talk) 22:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Don't care about the US too much. Simply arrange the boxes vertically in one row. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Micromanaging rendering

Trying to achieve the ideal rendering of wiki into HTML is not productive. The latest attempt resulted in [7], but the it looked much better before [8], at least on Safari. Besides the questionable results, it makes editing and maintaining harder. ebahapo (talk) 22:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

FMPOV the Notes section should just be as wide to be able to contain 5 citations per row. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 20:20, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Visually, the different tables seem to be rendered to have about the same width and thus the columns are adjusted to have different widths accordingly. ebahapo (talk) 20:29, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

It's an attempt akin to whack-a-mole that just makes editing more difficult without tangible benefits. ebahapo (talk) 17:26, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Americas mmWave

Though the n260, n261 and n262 bands are used primarily in the US and in their protectorates, they are used by a handful of operators, when perhaps adding columns for such bands would simplify the Others column and likely decrease the overall height of the table for the continent. ebahapo (talk) 20:09, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The same would apply to the n66 and n71 bands. ebahapo (talk) 16:13, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Within ITU Region 2 (the Americas) countries are generally using n258 and n260. n261 is limited to the U.S. and n262 has no hardware ecosystem atm so we could probably leave those out. In terms of low band, n71 and n5 can be added since operators in countries that haven't refarmed 600 MHz would turn to 850 MHz from 2G and 3G to offer lowband 5G. n66 and n2/n25 can stay in the others column for now. Joshua Shah (talk) Joshua Shah (talk) 18:40, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

In the Americas, there are a number of allocations or deployments:

• n2/n25: 4
• n5: 11
• n66: 8
• n71: 12
• n260: 7
• n261: 8
• n262: 3

There are no medium term plans to allocate n71 outside of the Canada and the US. Only a couple or so of countries outside of the Caribbean and N. America allocated n66. There's currently no firm definition for other mmWave bands other than n258 outside of Canada and the US. ebahapo (talk) 20:21, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

There are medium term plans to allocate n71 for ECTEL states in the Caribbean with consultations ongoing but as someone from the Caribbean I can tell you that things take long to get done here from a legislative and regulatory perspective so don't expect it anytime soon. Mexico is looking to auction it as well and Colombia is looking to open it up for mobile use but in terms of it actually being deployed we are far away from that happening especially in ECTEL caribbean countries so it could be left out. Mexico was supposed to auction n71 since 2018 I believe but haven't done so as yet so that should tell you what you need to know :(. Both n258 and n260 are the mmWave bands that ITU-2 countries are looking at but I don't expect them to be auctioned anytime soon. ITU-2 countries are reluctant to allocate n261 due to satellite services. So we could maybe leave the table as is until more countries deploy n2/25 or n66 or we can maybe add an n5 column now since you said thay there are 11 deployments? Joshua Shah (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd leave the table as is for now, but would agree to add n5 at a later point in time, as we indeed see a strong 2G and 3G decline in ITU-Region 2, which is also the only region where GSM 850 was deployed. Also the few remaining UMTS 850 deployments in ITU-Region 3 seem to put additional pressure on operators in the Americas to allow for simplified RF-Frontend and modem designs. In this context one can assume that n5 is likely the way to go for low-band 5G deployments in the Americas along with n28 in Latin-America. I'm keeping an eye on this topic. Thank you for putting this up. :-) Nightwalker-87 (talk) 16:32, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Latin America is quite far away from sunsetting 2G and 3G. There are quite a bunch of M2M devices and vehicles which still rely on them in the subcontinent. Operators also allege that there are many 4G devices in the hands of customers which don't support VoLTE. The parties are pushing for a schedule for the end of the decade.[9] This means that n5 (and n8) will probably remain allocated for 2G, and possibly for 3G, for quite a while there. Methinks that it's probably too soon to change columns at the moment. ebahapo (talk) 22:18, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

NSA information

When SA replaces an originally NSA deployment, both dates of deployment are displayed, which adds more lines to the respective data cell, thus increasing the row height. In this example, the NSA deployment date for Telstra (AU) is moved to an explanatory note, thus minimizing the increase in the row height when SA is deployed. Thoughts? ebahapo (talk) 22:21, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Carrier as source

This has already been discussed before and, IIRC, in the absence of better sources, it had been agreed that a carrier's own website would be acceptable reference for network deployment, including which bands. Yes? No? Why? ebahapo (talk) 16:00, 15 June 2024 (UTC)