Telstra 5g is super slow

[freeguy]

I am using the new iphone 12 pro with Telstra 5g plan. Each time when I entered into a 5g coverage area, the mobile network would either dropped to 3g or become very slow, even lose internet connection with a 5g showing on the phone.

[Chrisx89]

Agreed. 
I just started using 5G iPhone pro max today and it's so slow. When I search something on Google it drops down to 3G and thats in various locations. 
considering the plan costs it's not good enough.

[jpm100]

Agreed. Very slow in the suburbs.  Fast in the city, but I don't need it there. I am in a 5G coverage area at home, (Hawthorn East, Vic), and 5G is appallingly slow there, where I need it!

.

[ProfessorPhone]

As the local base station may not yet be fully enabled, (but operating),  the best way to isolate either the network or phone is a comparison with another 5G phone.

Whilst your phone may receive 5G, it does not mean the base station can receive your phone.

5G uses very high frequencies, thus the signal does not travel as well as 3G or 4G which use lower frequencies.

As iPhones are the very first 5G production release, you need to do a comparison.

[jpm100]

Thank you, but isn't it kinda obvious that it's not the phone's fault, if 5G in the city results in very fast speed.

[Jupiter]

@jpm100 @Chrisx89 you are both only showing 1 bar on your speed tests, so your signal strength on 5G is marginal where you did the test. 5G has quite a short range and the speeds drop off very quickly once you get further away from the transmitter, or do something silly like go inside a building.

And for Hawthorn East, there is currently only a single 5G tower active and that is near the Tram Depot, so it's not great coverage yet. Give it time for the rollout to occur.

[ProfessorPhone]

It's of note that the last 2 or 3 such reports are iPhone 12.

It may very well be coincidence?

[Jupiter]

It does seem to be a trend. I'm going into Melbourne next week, so I might see if anyone in the office there has an iPhone 12 series phone and test it out. On my Note10+5G I get around 450-600Mbps usually on 5G, so I'll try and run a concurrent test and see if there is a substantive difference in speed between my phone and an iPhone.