What Is C-Band, and What Does It Mean for the Future of 5G?

pcmag.com:

It came. You saw. Planes did not fall out of the sky.

AT&T and Verizon recently turned on their C-band 5G networks after months of dispute with the airlines and FAA. And, knock on wood, so far we've seen neither major flight disruptions nor any danger to air safety.

After two years of AT&T's and Verizon's "nationwide 5G" networks feeling much like 4G, C-band could finally majorly multiply speeds. But what is C-band, and what does it mean for 5G? Do you need a C-band phone? Is C-band a new frequency? Should you be scared of C-band? We can explain.

According to wireless testing firm Rohde and Schwarz, the C-band is all frequencies between 4 and 8GHz. When US wireless geeks talk about C-band, though, they're talking about 3.7 to 4.2GHz—and specifically, in this case, the range from 3.7 to 3.98GHz.

This frequency had been used for satellite TV since the 1970s, but as C-band satellite reception requires "big, ugly dishes" up to 10 feet in diameter, it got largely replaced by more flexible systems with smaller dishes on the Ku band, such as Dish and DirecTV. C-band is currently used for the "satellite downlink" for broadcast television distribution.

With more advanced methods of digital encoding than they had in the 1970s, the satellite companies can now "repack" their broadcasts into the upper portion of the C-band, leaving the lower portion available for cellular companies to use.

C-band sits between the two Wi-Fi bands, which are at 2.4GHz and 5GHz. It's slightly above and very similar to the 2.6GHz band that Clearwire and then Sprint used for 4G starting in 2007, and which T-Mobile currently uses for mid-band 5G. And it sits immediately above CBRS, a band from 3.55 to 3.7GHz that's currently being deployed for 4G. So its