T-Mobile's 5G Advanced network is live across the US but that doesn't mean anything for you unless you have a compatible smartphone.
5G Advanced is a new set of network capabilities that push 5G to its full potential and make new use cases possible. It could be a while before
and
Verizon deploy similar upgrades, as unlike
T-Mobile, they did not begin 5Grollout with Standalone (SA) architecture which is a prerequisite for 5G Advanced.
5G Advanced will bring a lot of enhancements to the table, including faster speeds, lower delays, greater efficiency, and improved capacity.
These improvements will elevate Extended Reality (XR), cloud gaming, and online conferencing experience and make location services more accurate.
The 5G Advanced standard is based on Release 18, the latest network standard specifications developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a telecommunications standards development entity.
5G Advanced will open up new possibilities. | Image Credit - Qualcomm
Your phone will only support 5G Advanced if it has a Release 18-compliant modem. Silicon vendors like Qualcomm and MediaTek implemented the specification before the rollout, so most recent flagships support it.
As Android Authority reminds us, this leaves out the
Pixel 9. That's because while the modems in
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon 8 Elite that power recent
Android phones such as the
Samsung Galaxy S25 and
OnePlus 13, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon X75 modem inside the
iPhone 16, the Pixel 9's Exynos 5400 modem doesn't support the Release 18 standard.
Of course, it's entirely possible that the Exynos modem unofficially supports Release 18, but that just sounds like wishful thinking.
This means that Pixel users will have massive FOMO (Fear of missing out) as their handsets will not be able to experience the improvements 5G Advanced will bring. What's more, Google's next flagship, the
Pixel 10,
may also not fully support 5G Advanced, as it's rumored MediaTek's T900 modem will use the 3GPP Release 17 5G spec.
That's not necessarily a downer, considering the 5G upgrade targets cutting-edge use cases such as Extended Reality (XR) and cloud gaming.
Anam Hamid is a computer scientist turned tech journalist who has a keen interest in the tech world, with a particular focus on smartphones and tablets. She has previously written for Android Headlines and has also been a ghostwriter for several tech and car publications. Anam is not a tech hoarder and believes in using her gadgets for as long as possible. She is concerned about smartphone addiction and its impact on future generations, but she also appreciates the convenience that phones have brought into our lives. Anam is excited about technological advancements like folding screens and under-display sensors, and she often wonders about the future of technology. She values the overall experience of a device more than its individual specs and admires companies that deliver durable, high-quality products. In her free time, Anam enjoys reading, scrolling through Reddit and Instagram, and occasionally refreshing her programming skills through tutorials.
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