T-Mobile has advised users to turn off their device’s 5G connectivity in order to conserve battery life.
On its website, the carrier says users can “toggle from 5G/LTE to 2G” to save battery life. T-Mobile’s battery-saving tip comes shortly after Verizon implied that turning off 5G helps prevent a phone’s battery from “draining faster than normal.”
“One way to help conserve battery life is to turn on LTE,” Verizon’s support team said Sunday in a since-deleted tweet.
Battery drain
For quite some time, wireless carriers have been touting 5G as a game-changer that will lead to significantly faster data speeds. Now that it’s available, the issue of 5G power consumption appears to have cropped up.
Samsung has also warned that Galaxy smartphone users may notice their phone battery draining more quickly when they use 5G.
“You may notice that your phone's battery drains faster than usual while you are connected to a 5G network. This is a limitation of the current 5G networks, and will be improved as the networks expand,” the company wrote on a support page.
PCMag points out that new technologies are on the way that are expected to help mitigate the issue.
“As T-Mobile switches to standalone 5G, that drops the mid-band control channel and results in less battery drain. When Verizon and AT&T turn on C-band next year, they won't rely on DSS as much, which will also help battery life,” the tech website said. “Over time, more sites will have 5G and your phone won't have to stretch as much, and that means—you guessed it—less battery drain.”