How to get 5G on iPhone: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

With new technological disruptions happening every dawn and dusk, 5G has finally reached India. With ultra-low latency, faster connectivity speeds, and greater bandwidth, services that we saw as futuristic – like connected vehicles, advanced mobile cloud gaming, and e-health – have arrived. Cloud was the first revolution 16 years ago when AWS cloud released S3 (I was part of that team), and 5G is the next big thing in IT and cloud.

I have been excited and eagerly waiting to activate the 5G network on my iPhone. And if you are a techie like me, I am sure you would have googled a hundred times on ‘how to switch to 5G on iPhone’. So, I thought I should write a step-by-step guide for the same.

How to enable / activate 5G on iPhone?

I have done all the trials and errors and documented the detailed steps here in this article so that you don’t have to really struggle for 5G activation. Follow these steps to enable 5G on your iPhone.

STEP –1: Check if your iPhone has a version that supports 5G

Only models of the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and iPhone 14 series are 5G enabled. These include iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. If you have one of these phones, proceed further. If not, you might not be able to avail the 5G services on your iPhone.  

STEP – 2: You need a carrier that supports 5G

As of today (22nd Dec 2022), only postpaid services of Airtel and Reliance Jio support 5G services in India. BSNL is supposed to release 5G services by May 2023 and Vi (Vodafone Idea) will supposedly introduce it by August 2023. If you have Airtel or Jio postpaid, you can proceed. If you are not on those networks, you can switch to them, keeping your number, via the number-portability feature.  

STEP – 3: You need to be in a city that is 5G enabled

5G has been launched in many cities in India in small clusters. The current list of cities as on 22nd Dec 2022 that support Airtel & Reliance Jio 5G are as below. If the name of your city is not in the below list, please check their respective website for the latest cities or their customer support for the expected lunch of 5G in your city. 

Airtel 5G is available in these cities:

Similarly, Jio 5G is available in the below cities as of now:

STEP – 4: Update your iPhone software

You need to have iOS version 16.2 or above to get that 5G symbol on your network bars. Go to your iPhone settings, select ‘General’, and tap ‘Software Update’. If you have iOS 16.2, it’s fine. If not, keep updating your device until your get iOS 16.2

STEP – 5: Enable 5G services on your iPhone

You also need to enable 5G services on your device. To do that, just go to your iPhone settings, select ‘Mobile Data’ and go to ‘Mobile Data Options’. Now select ‘Voice and Data’ and tap ‘5G On’

STEP – 6: Go to a spot that has 5G coverage

Currently, only small clusters in the cities above have 5G coverage, which will eventually expand. If you now have 5G on your phone, congrats! If you don’t, you need to go to a location where 5G is available in your city. To find locations in your city where 5G services are available, please follow the below steps.  

Step A:

Go to the nPerf website. This website will show you all the existing 5G locations across the world. This is something that you will see when you click on the website.  

Step B:

Now all you need to do is zoom in on your country and then your city. When I zoomed in on Bangalore, I was able to see all the 5G hotspots in the city like this.

STEP – 7: Restart your phone

Once you are there in a 5G enabled location, just restart your phone and you’ll have 5G activated & 5G network connected. Below screenshot shows 5G on my iPhone in the Koramangala 5th Block Area!

When I did a speed test, I could see that I was getting 245 Mbps speed which wasn’t possible with 4G. Earlier, I could only get a speed of around 30 Mbps, but with 5G it’s about 10x more.

Now that I have explained all the steps that are involved in enabling the 5G network on your iPhone in detail, you can go ahead and activate 5G connectivity on your device. I hope you won’t have any difficulties in doing so.

However, if you are stuck anywhere, you can go back to these steps and follow the suggested procedure. And if you still can’t enable 5G on your phone, you can drop a comment below. I will surely get back to you with a solution.

Hope this article was helpful to you. Do like & comment here. Alternatively, you can also share the article with your friends & help them get 5G services on their devices.

Let’s enjoy the seamless services of 5G on our iPhones together!