As the need for faster speed grows, US network operator AT&T is gearing up to begin its first field trials of 5G or fifth-generation cellular technology.
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America’s second-biggest carrier will start testing a virtual 5G network in its Austin, Texas labs by the summer, cooperating with Ericsson and Intel for the equipment.
USA TODAY: AT&T said it is ready to conduct “5G” field trials by the end of the year, following a similar announcement from Verizon.
AT&T (NYSE:T) appears to be changing its tune when it comes to 5G technology, which is expected to have lower latency (the time it takes to respond to a request) and faster connection speeds than 4G LTE. Telecom companies are getting ready by testing their technology for implementing 5G but it might take quite some time to launch 5G commercially in United States.
AT&T, the nation’s second-largest wireless carrier, says this could be a boon to rural America, serving those without cable service with high-speed internet options, and offering an alternative to fixed internet services in other areas. In the upcoming years, not only will the number of devices connected to the Internet rise thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), the volume of traffic will also increase due to 4K videos and virtual reality.
Speaking on this issue, John Donovan, who is chief strategy officer at AT&T, explained that many advanced technologies, such as robots, self-driving cars and smart cities will be using networks to a greater capacity, which means that 5G will help their clients develop groundbreaking results much faster. Latency will also drop to as little as 1 to 5 milliseconds, AT&T said. While AT&T is promising customers speeds of up to 100 times faster than the normal ones, Verizon is only estimating theirs to be 30-50 times faster. “We will be the first company to roll 5G out in the United States and we are now preparing for those field trials”. For reference, at one gigabit per second, you can download a TV show in less than 3 seconds.
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Although most industry experts say 5G won’t become widely available until 2020, that doesn’t stop the carriers from laying the groundwork. On a 5G network, you could download the latest “Star Wars” film in seconds, not the minutes needed… “We felt compelled to put our roadmap out more specifically because increasingly Verizon is running reasonably uncontested as if they’re in a technology leadership position”. This won’t happen overnight-the tests will give AT&T some direction in how it proposes potential 5G standards, so we’re talking about something that’s at a very early stage here.
