Users won’t need a special phone or plan to take advantage of the benefits from L4S. “This is network-driven,” T-Mobile CTO John Saw tells The Verge.

L4S has already been implemented in “many cities” through T-Mobile’s 5G Advanced network, and the company, represented by spokesperson Anushka Bishen, is committed to “actively expanding” its coverage. According to Saw, T-Mobile is pioneering in the US by being the first wireless network to adopt L4S.

The L4S standard aids devices in managing congestion with internet packets, decreasing the chances of encountering pauses due to buffering and latency, which can occur even on advanced 5G networks with high bandwidth. L4S marks packets experiencing congestion, allowing devices to interpret these signals and make necessary adjustments to potentially reduce or eliminate congestion altogether.

Saw used a car analogy to help explain it: “In the olden days, you used reactive braking when traffic slows down. L4S is more like dynamic cruise control, where the car actually automatically slows down and speeds up without you having to jump in.” If you want to read more, my former colleague Mitchell Clark has a detailed explainer of how it’s supposed to help.

For users, this means that applications that support L4S should experience less latency. In a blog post, Saw highlights how L4S can benefit things like Nvidia’s GeForce Now and Apple’s FaceTime calls. Both Nvidia and Apple also worked with Comcast during its trials of L4S, and Comcast started rolling out L4S to some cities earlier this year.