Where Are All the 5G Hotspots?
Tags: 5g, Mobi̇le, Future Technology, Smartphones, Technology

Multi-device, business, and home internet access were some of the big dreams for 5G, but it has stalled.

By Sascha Segan

The 5G networks in the US are now more than a year old, but they haven’t fulfilled one of their earliest promises-to offer a fast on-ramp to the internet for your laptop when you’re on the go.

For more than a decade, that was the role of PC cards, USB sticks, and wireless hotspots. Both 3G and 4G networks came in with laptop internet access, and both Sprint and AT&T had hotspots as part of their supposed initial 5G launches.

But since those first launches, the high-speed hotspot market has been in a deep freeze. AT&T never did release its Netgear Nighthawk 5G to consumers. T-Mobile is terminating 5G service for its HTC 5G Hub; it sells no alternative product. I’m currently re-testing Verizon’s Inseego M1000 hotspot, still the carrier’s only 5G hotspot, which was released last July.

Yes, you can argue that people should use their smartphones in hotspot mode. But there are enough reasons not to do that, which has kept the hotspot market alive for years now. Because they don’t have fancy screens and glass bodies, hotspots tend to cost less than half the price of smartphones with similar network capabilities. They often have better reception, larger batteries, support more devices, and can be billed separately from phones (which is key for businesses that use them for worksites and business travelers.)

If you’re working on the go, or hiding out from the plague, a hotspot, especially one that attaches to an external antenna, can be a good solution.

Inseego and Netgear, the two big hotspot makers in the US, have both said they’re working on more 5G access products, but Netgear’s M5 hotspot may still be months away. In the meantime, AT&T launched an entire new low-band 5G network, and Sprint and T-Mobile merged. You’d think there would be an opportunity there.

Missing Many Modems? Maybe

So what’s holding the industry up? The cost of millimeter-wave devices has got to be part of it. Verizon and AT&T will both want the fast, costly technology in their hotspots. So far, it’s a Qualcomm monopoly, and so far, we haven’t seen any millimeter-wave devices priced under the $400 that Inseego and Verizon are charging for the M1000. Millimeter-wave may just be too expensive to work with.

But that doesn’t explain T-Mobile’s position. The carrier predicated its merger with Sprint in part on bringing 5G internet to the masses, but it’s terminated 5G service for Sprint’s one hotspot, and it currently only offers low-priced, relatively low-speed 4G hotspots to its customers.

Maybe the carriers don’t have the network capacity to handle 5G hotspots. Limited data plans make no sense at 5G speeds, and a hotspot connected to multiple devices can easily guzzle down dozens, if not hundreds of gigabytes per month. That said, all of the carriers have promised that 5G is supposed to greatly expand network capacity. If that’s not happening, we have to wonder more intensely what they’re spending all this money on.

5G home internet access will hopefully boom later this year; Verizon’s CEO said that 5G home modems are finally coming this fall. But those devices are going to be too big to take on the go. Over the next year, many of us are probably going to be working outside to try to avoid COVID-19. That sounds like a prime opportunity for some great 5G hotspots, if anyone offered one.