Sure, Verizon Wireless has already claimed that it will beat everybody to the 5G race. But in the world of mobile, nothing is ever certain. Meanwhile, the second biggest mobile operator in America is busy boosting its efforts when it comes to testing its own 5G offering. Indeed, AT&T is looking to begin conducting 5G tests in select markets, including the cities of Indianapolis in Indiana and Austin in Texas. This means that later this year, participants of the trials held in these cities will get to experience what 400 mbps (or higher) connection speeds are really like.
Thanks to a series of granted approvals courtesy of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a number of aspects in AT&T’s 5G trials have been expedited. Because of this, the major US wireless carrier has found itself a full year ahead of schedule with regards to its 5G ambitions.
Make no mistake, launching a 5G service is easier said than done. For example, AT&T will still have to deal with the open bidding that may or may not take place for licenses in order for wireless carriers to actually utilize 5G on specific types of airwaves. It goes without saying that all the members of the Big Four (Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint) and then some will want to join in on the bidding fun.
AT&T is pretty much demonstrating already to the rest of the world how excited it is for 5G. Indeed, the company is looking to run five ads that portray what it is like to have a 5G network in mobile users’ daily lives, and these ads will be airing during the Masters Golf tournament.
Less than a month ago, it was reported that AT&T was preparing to roll out standards based mobile 5G by 2018. This was made possible with the 3GPP standards making body choosing to speed some elements of its 5G New Radio (NR) schedule in March early this year, when more than 40 signatories had voted to accelerate the non-standalone implementation of the 5G NR standard, in an effort to make way for more big scale testing and deployments based on the spec, starting in 2019 instead of the initially projected 2020 schedule. Andre Fuetsch, the chief technical officer of AT&T (and also the current head of AT&T Labs), that the 3GPP’s move has allowed the wireless carrier to bump its schedule up one year ahead of the original timeline.
