Technology

5 Mins Read

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.

What excites me the most about this technology is the humongous opportunities it brings along for the cloud space. For a cloud-driven organization like CloudThat – built on acceleration, innovation, and transformation – 5G is our ally to modernize and customize our operations and evolve at scale and complexity.

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.

  • Cloud Migration
  • Devops
  • AIML & IoT
Know More

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:

Hyderabad   Gurugram  
Chennai   Guwahati  
Delhi   Patna  
Mumbai   Lucknow  
Bengaluru   Shimla  
Siliguri   Imphal  
Nagpur   Ahmedabad  
Varanasi   Gandhinagar  
Panipat    

 

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

State/UT  City 
Delhi  Delhi 
Maharashtra  Mumbai 
Nagpur 
Pune 
West Bengal  Kolkata 
Siliguri 
Uttar Pradesh  Varanasi 
Lucknow 
Tamil Nādu  Chennai 
Karnataka  Bangalore 
Telangana  Hyderabad 
Rajasthan  Jaipur 
Haryana  Panipat 
Assam  Guwahati 
Kerala  Kochi 
Bihar  Patna 
Andhra Pradesh  Visakhapatnam 
Gujarat 

 

Ahmedabad 
Gandhinagar 
Bhavnagar 
Mehsana 
Rajkot 
Surat 
Vadodara 
Amreli 
Botad 
Junagadh 
Porbandar 
Veraval 
Himatnagar 
Modasa 
Palanpur 
Patan 
Bhuj 
Jamnagar 
Khambhalia 
Morvi 
Wadhwan 
AHWA 
Bharuch 
Navsari 
Rajpipla 
Valsad 
Vyara 
Anand 
Chota Udaipur 
Dohad 
Godhra 
Lunawada 
Nadiad 

 

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!

Get your new hires billable within 1-60 days. Experience our Capability Development Framework today.

  • Cloud Training
  • Customized Training
  • Experiential Learning
Read More

WRITTEN BY Bhavesh Goswami

Bhavesh Goswami is the Founder & CEO of CloudThat Technologies. He is a leading expert in the Cloud Computing space with over a decade of experience. He was in the initial development team of Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Seattle. and has been working in the Cloud Computing and Big Data fields for over 12 years now. He is a public speaker and has been the Keynote Speaker at the ‘International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics’. He also has authored numerous research papers and patents in various fields.

Share

Comments

  1. Diksha Gupta

    Dec 27, 2022

    Reply

    Informative & Useful Guide for iPhone Users! Thanks, Bhavesh for sharing this great piece of information!
    I believe by laying the groundwork for innovation, 5G and cloud computing have the potential to boost every company’s operational efficiency as well in the near future.

  2. Tahir

    Dec 27, 2022

    Reply

    Thanks for sharing this blog with detailed and easy-to-follow guide. The clear instructions and helpful screenshots made it easy to understand and follow along. Overall, this is a useful resource for anyone looking to upgrade to 5G on their iPhone

  3. Ishani Ray

    Dec 27, 2022

    Reply

    Very Informative! Something I was not aware of. Thank you, Bhavesh, for the detailed guide. Trying it out now 🙂

  4. Ashna

    Dec 27, 2022

    Reply

    This is really helpful 🙂

  5. Trasha

    Dec 27, 2022

    Reply

    Informative!
    All the steps are quite clear as the country is moving towards 5g. Very useful for all the iPhone users.
    Thanks Bhavesh for sharing this useful information.

  6. Nawal Gazala

    Dec 27, 2022

    Reply

    I liked the details taken care of in this blog. I forgot to enable 5G on my phone and wasn’t able to connect. But the blog helped me catch up on it.
    Thanks Bhavesh. I can now enjoy the speed of 5G.

  7. Runjhun

    Dec 27, 2022

    Reply

    Perfectly summarized. Wasn’t really aware of the cities in India where 5G is available and also about the 5G clusters in cities.
    With 5G being the way forward, it will be interesting to know how connectivity and technology will improve going forward.
    Thank you for sharing.

  8. Rimmi Kesari

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    The required information in one place! Thanks for the article Bhavesh. I will definitely share this with my friends who own an iPhone.

  9. Shehnaz

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    This was very informative. Looking forward to reading more such articles.

  10. Susil

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Great piece of information. I followed the steps to see any hotspot near my house in Whitefield. Though it is a very small patch but I got the SPOT easily. Thanks, Bhavesh for recording the steps. It made my life easy.

  11. Mridusmita Bhattacharjee

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Informative and Insightful

  12. Amandeep Kiran

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Very informative and nicely summarized. Helpful for iphone users who are struggling to enable 5G services.

  13. Runjhun

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    That was an interesting read.
    But considering the fact that almost 90% Indian market is dominated by Android, looking forward to a similar piece on it.

  14. Sourin Lodh

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    The information is really helpful. Thank you for sharing.

  15. Rohit

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Interesting!

  16. Bhagyashree Desai

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Thanks for sharing the information.

  17. Madhusudan Dadhich

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Really insightful, thanks for sharing.

  18. Tamanya

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Thanks for sharing the informative content

  19. Amandeep Kiran

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Great news for Iphone users!

  20. Indira

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Great Piece of Information! The infrastructure and design of business networks will be completely rethought with the launch of the 5G network. Massive amounts of computational power will be released by 5G. Particularly for cloud computing, low latency, more capacity, and higher network speeds will be a catalyst.

  21. Trasha singh

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Informative!
    Thanks for sharing.

  22. Divya

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Enlightening Information…

  23. Divya

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Insightful one…

  24. Tahir

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Informational content. Thanks for sharing!

  25. Navya

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Really helpful! Thank you

  26. Diksha Gupta

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Great Information!

  27. Susil Kumar Jena

    Dec 26, 2022

    Reply

    Great piece of information. The steps are clearly penned down. It will be a help when I get my iPhone & activate 5G there.

  28. Himisha

    Dec 24, 2022

    Reply

    When the country is moving towards 5G generation; it is very important for all to take a step towards it. I followed all the steps and now I am 5G enabled.
    Very detailed guide… Thanks Bhavesh.

  29. Click to Comment

Get The Most Out Of Us

Our support doesn't end here. We have monthly newsletters, study guides, practice questions, and more to assist you in upgrading your cloud career. Subscribe to get them all!