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5G is the great promise of phone manufacturers for this 2020. It is a fact, all (or at least most) high-end phones this year have 5G. The problem is that, as it happened with 4G almost a decade ago, the availability of the network is rather limited. In Spain, only a few cities have 5G coverage. To this must be added that the currently available network does not take full advantage of the new standard, as we will see below.
List of cities with 5G in Spain in 2020
The deployment of 5G in Spain is being carried out by Huawei and Ericsson. Little by little, the development of the new network technology in Spain is taking shape, as well as the support in the different provinces and Autonomous Communities. Despite this, the number of cities with 5G is quite limited today. In fact, only 20 cities have 5G coverage. The following, specifically:
- Alicante
- Badajoz
- Barcelona
- Benidorm
- Bilbao
- Gijon
- Corunna
- Logroño
- Madrid
- Malaga
- Majorca
- Murcia
- Pamplona
- Santander
- Saint Sebastian
- Seville
- Valencia
- Vigo
- Vitoria
- Saragossa
What you have to know before hiring a rate with 5G in Spain
To the limited list of territories with 5G coverage, we must add some limitations imposed by the telecommunications companies themselves. The first promise that we must take into account is that Vodafone is the only operator that currently offers 5G rates. Neither Movistar, nor Orange. Vodafone.
Within the Vodafone catalog, the operator offers a series of rates compatible with this technology. What we must bear in mind is that support for 5G coverage is only present in the company's unlimited rates and in some convergent Fiber and Mobile plans. Ironically, the speed offered in each of these rates is limited (2, 10 or 300 Mbps), despite the fact that the name may suggest otherwise.
Another point that we must take into account is that the current technology implemented in Spain does not allow us to take advantage of all the possibilities of the 5G network. Most of the antennas installed in our country operate under the 5G NSA or 5G non-autonomous standard. This standard combines the use of 4G antennas with some of the technologies introduced with 5G.
Beyond the technical characteristics of this type of antenna, what interests us is that the maximum download and upload speed is 2 Gbps and 150 Mbps respectively, with a latency of 15 milliseconds. That in a theoretical and ideal plan, since the real figures are far behind what is promised.
Although it is data that competes directly with fiber networks, the speeds that we can obtain with the 5G SA are 20 Gbps in download and 10 Gbps in upload, with a latency of only 1 millisecond. To put these figures in context, 4G + is capable of offering just 1 Gbps of download speed and 150 Mbps upload. We can say, therefore, that the 5G NSA is an enhanced 4G +. The question is the following: when will the 5G SA arrive in Spain?
Today the plans of the different operators are not known. If we take as a reference the introduction of 4G almost 10 years ago today, we can deduce that the process can take up to the next 5 years to have full coverage in Spain. All this could change due to the current health situation.
