What you need to know
- Verizon, Sprint, and several carriers around the world will support 5G PCs.
- PCs are on the way that support both millimeter wave and sub-6GHz 5G networks.
- Several carriers in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia will support 5G PCs.
2020 is shaping up to be the year of 5G, and 5G PCs will be part of that push. Qualcomm announced today that Verizon, Sprint, and several major carriers around the world will support 5G PCs. Several 5G PCs have been announced, like the Lenovo Yoga 5G and HP Dragonfly 5G that support both millimeter wave and sub-6GHz 5G networks.
Qualcomm shared the list of carriers that will support 5G PCs:
North America
- Verizon
- Sprint
Europe, Middle East & Africa
- EE
- Swisscom
- Telefonica
- TIM
- Transatel
Asia, Australia & New Zealand
- China Mobile
- China Telecom
- China Unicom
- KDDI Corporation
- Rakuten Mobile
- KT
- LGU+
- SK Telecom
- SoftBank Corp.
- Telstra
Notably, AT&T is not mentioned in the announcement, but it's still early days for 5G, and the technology shouldn't prevent new 5G devices from working on their network. South America is also not listed by Qualcomm, though that doesn't mean no carriers on the continent will support 5G PCs.
It's a bit unclear what support from a carrier means in regard to 5G PCs. Always Connected PCs can connect to 4G networks just by placing a SIM inside. Generally, placing a SIM inside an Always Connected PC just works. There are some exceptions to this, and sometimes 4G Always Connected PCs work better on networks they've been optimized for. We'll have to wait and see if this works in a similar way for 5G PCs.
Qualcomm announced the 5G X55 chipset for Always Connected PCs one year ago. That chip can work in ARM-based laptops or Intel ones.
