5G Business Internet: What It Actually Delivers and Whether Your Business Should Switch

5G Business Internet: Cutting Through the Hype

Every carrier is marketing 5G as revolutionary. The commercials show instant downloads, seamless connectivity, and speeds that make fiber look obsolete. But for business decision-makers, the question isn't whether 5G sounds impressive — it's whether it actually delivers what your operations need.

How 5G Actually Works (Low-Band, Mid-Band, mmWave)

5G isn't one technology — it's three different frequency bands with dramatically different characteristics:

Low-band 5G (600-900 MHz): Wide coverage, penetrates buildings well, but speeds are only marginally better than 4G LTE. If you're seeing "5G" in a suburban or rural area, this is likely what you're getting.

Mid-band 5G (2.5-4 GHz): The practical sweet spot. Delivers 100-400 Mbps real-world speeds with decent coverage. Most urban business areas are getting mid-band deployments.

mmWave 5G (24-47 GHz): The headline speeds you see in marketing — over 1 Gbps. But mmWave barely penetrates walls, doesn't travel far, and requires line-of-sight. Unless your office is within a few hundred feet of a mmWave antenna with no obstructions, you won't see these speeds.

Real-World Speeds vs. Marketing Claims

When carriers advertise "5G speeds up to 1 Gbps," they're talking about mmWave under ideal conditions. Here's what businesses actually experience:

Mid-band 5G (the most common business scenario): 100-400 Mbps download, 20-50 Mbps upload. Speeds vary significantly by time of day, building location, and how many other users are on the network.

For context, that's comparable to basic cable internet — useful, but not the revolutionary leap the marketing suggests.

Where 5G Business Internet Makes Sense

Despite the hype gap, 5G does have legitimate business use cases:

Primary Internet for Small Metro Offices

If you're a small office (under 15 employees) in a well-covered metro area with moderate bandwidth needs, 5G can work as primary internet. The key qualifiers: small team, urban location with mid-band coverage, and workloads that don't require guaranteed bandwidth.

Backup and Failover

This is where 5G genuinely shines. Because it uses cellular infrastructure completely separate from wired connections, 5G provides true path diversity for failover protection. If your fiber and cable both go down (they often share underground infrastructure), 5G keeps you running.

Fast Deployment and Temporary Locations

Need internet at a pop-up location, construction site, or temporary office? 5G deploys in hours — just plug in the router. No installation appointments, no construction permits, no waiting.

Where 5G Falls Short for Business

Here's where honest assessment matters:

Shared Bandwidth and No SLAs

Most 5G business plans share bandwidth with consumer traffic. During peak hours, your speeds drop as everyone else streams video. And unlike fiber or dedicated fixed wireless, most 5G services don't offer Service Level Agreements guaranteeing uptime or speeds.

Inconsistent Performance

5G performance varies by:

• Time of day (congestion)
• Your exact location within a building
• Weather conditions
• How many users are nearby
• Which 5G band you're connected to

For businesses that need predictable, consistent connectivity, this variability is a real problem.

Upload speed limitations: 5G prioritizes download over upload. If your business uploads large files, uses cloud backup, or runs video conferencing heavily, you'll feel the asymmetric speeds.

5G vs. Fiber vs. Fixed Wireless: An Honest Comparison

Here's how the technologies stack up for business use:

Reliability: Fiber > Fixed Wireless > 5G. Fiber has decades of proven reliability. Licensed fixed wireless comes close. 5G is still maturing and shares infrastructure with millions of consumers.

Deployment Speed: 5G > Fixed Wireless > Fiber. 5G wins on speed to deploy — it's essentially instant. Fixed wireless takes days. Fiber takes weeks to months.

Guaranteed Performance: Fiber and fixed wireless offer business SLAs. 5G typically doesn't.

Cost: 5G often has the lowest upfront cost. But factor in the lack of SLAs and variable performance when calculating true business value.

The smart approach for most businesses: Don't choose one technology exclusively. Use the right technology for each purpose — perhaps fiber as primary, 5G as backup, or 5G for temporary locations while running dedicated connections elsewhere.

Choosing the Right Internet Technology for Your Business

5G isn't bad — it's just not the universal solution the marketing suggests. It has clear strengths (fast deployment, good backup option, works for small mobile-friendly offices) and clear weaknesses (variable performance, shared bandwidth, limited SLAs).

At Tierzero, we offer fiber, fixed wireless, 5G, and even Starlink because different situations call for different solutions. We've been helping businesses navigate connectivity decisions since 1997, and the right answer is almost always "it depends."

If you're evaluating 5G or any other internet option, talk to us. We'll give you an honest assessment based on your actual needs, not what we're trying to sell.