"5G UW" is good service, but it's not usually mmWave. It's primarily mid-band stuff, usually Band n77 (3.7ghz C-Band)

It's usually good, but that's primarily because Verizon is going a good-ish job (in Michigan, at least) of deploying it densely in smaller neighborhood/urban cell sites (2x to 3x site density over traditional PCS-spaced cell towers). It's basically Verizon's version of what Clear was supposed to be doing with WiMax.

Notably, C-Band is not mmWave. mmWave bands start at like the 24.2ghz+, way way higher up the spectrum band.

If your phone reads "5G UW", there's like a 95% chance you aren't on mmWave, you are on n77 / C-Band / 'mid-band'.

I regularly see it in Atlanta in the big tech business areas (Buckhead, Midtown, etc) but it is hilariously bad.

Whenever I notice my cellular data has regressed to 3G speeds and reliability, I look up at the network status and see “5G UW”.

I don’t know if they deployed it without enough bandwidth on the trunk to handle all of the users or something else but I generally have to toggle airplane mode to drop back into 5G or LTE to get off of it.

"5G UW" is marketing bullshit by Verizon that they force cellphone makers to display. Basically it originally meant "mmWave" but was later revised to "mmWave or mid-band". You are probably seeing the mid-band due to the limitations of mmWave.

Get a non-US iPhone which doesn't support those: https://www.apple.com/iphone/cellular/