Telecom operator AT&T said its wireless customers with a Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ smartphone can access 5G Evolution internet speeds in select areas of Austin — from today.
Indianapolis will also be receiving 5G Internet speeds from AT&T soon. Some of the major metros in AT&T 5G network plans include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, San Francisco and others.
T-Mobile earlier announced that it will double Internet speed to its wireless customers on the latest smartphones. T-Mobile did not promote its offer as “5G speed”.
AT&T, which announced 5G Evolution plans, said it will offer faster speeds to its wireless customers with the latest devices in over 20 major metro areas by the end of this year.
“We continue to lay the foundation for our evolution to 5G while the 5G standards are being finalized,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Entertainment Group.
Austin will get 5G speed offering twice the speeds of AT&T’s 4G LTE network. AT&T wireless users on almost all AT&T data plans with Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ device can access 5G speed. These faster speeds allow reduced gaming lag and less buffering when watching your video shows.
AT&T is making significant investment in wireless network by adding small cells and using 5G Evolution achieved through upgrades like carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO, 256 QAM and more.
Network investment
Top telecom operators in the US are making investment in spectrum and networks to spruce up their data networks.
T-Mobile US purchased 45 percent of the 600MHz licenses sold during the latest spectrum auction in the US.
“The decision of Verizon to refrain from the spectrum auction indicates the carrier believes it will be able to sufficiently sustain its new unlimited data strategy via small cell deployments and more efficiently leverage existing spectrum licenses through emerging technologies including C-RAN, carrier aggregation and LTE Unlicensed (LTE-U),” said Steve Vachon, analyst at Technology Business Review.
Verizon may purchase or lease spectrum from Dish Network, which purchased over $6 billion of licenses at the 600MHz incentive auction.
Verizon is focusing investments on deploying emerging enterprise-centered technologies such as 5G and software-defined services such as SD-WAN, while competitors such as T-Mobile gain market share in the consumer mobility segment through more aggressive pricing tactics.
Verizon will compete with AT&T in pre-standards 5G services as the companies seek to gain a time-to-market advantage in 5G while also resolving technical issues and optimizing the cost-effectiveness of deployments before the technology is offered on a wider commercial scale.
Verizon is investing to gain an advantage over AT&T, including purchasing at least $1.05 billion of fiber from Corning from 2018 to 2020 to support 5G deployments. AT&T announced its decision to buy Straight Path Communications.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
