Well, in case you don’t know, Verizon has already started testing 5G in New Jersey and will roll out 5G services soon in select circles.
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Latency, which is seen in how long it takes after you press play on a video app for the content to begin streaming on your device, is expected to be dramatically reduced as well.
Once in place, AT&T said it expects 5G networks to deliver speeds 10 to 100 times faster than the 4G LTE connections we use today.
According to AT&T, 5G, or “fifth generation” wireless, is so fast that you can download 10 to 100 times faster than 4G LTE, theoretically allowing TV shows to be downloaded in less than five seconds. The global standards body 3GPP is expected to finish the 5G standards by 2018.
A report published on AT&T’s move on 5G in USA Today informed, “AT&T reports that data traffic on its wireless network grew more than 150,000% from the dawn of the iPhone age in 2007 through 2015, largely driven by video”.
Verizon may have unveiled its road map to accessing 5G wireless speeds last September, but AT&T doesn’t want to be left in Big Red’s dust.
But while we wait for true 5G connectivity, LTE is set to get even faster through “LTE-Advanced-Plus”, which will push our current networks to their maximum potential. “More than 60% of the data traffic on our total network was video in 2015”. Latency measures the round-trip time it takes for a packet of data to go to from a smartphone to a cell site and back, excluding any Internet latency.
This sounds like it could fit in with AT&T plans to provide fixed wireless Internet to areas without good wired broadband.
“New experiences like virtual reality, self-driving cars, robotics, smart cities and more are about to test networks like never before”, John Donovan, AT&T’s chief strategy officer and group president for technology and operations, said in a written statement. This will be supplied in connection with SDNs (software defined networks), which will virtualize 75% of AT&T’s network by 2020.
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AT&T tells us that “an early use of 5G’s underlying technology could be delivering broadband to homes and businesses” while explaining that “it’s possible that we could have limited commercial availability this year depending on the trials”. The combination of the 37 GHz and 39 GHz bands, the carrier said, will support the creation of multiple licenses with bandwidths of 200 MHz or more that would be “attractive” to industry players looking for more bandwidth. The company said it has worked on numerous key ingredients of 5G technology in its labs for years. After Verizon, AT&T is the second cellular company to announce trials of 5G technology.
