The giant carrier company AT&T plans to test an early version of its 5G network later this year. The company says the 5G networks can be up to 100 times faster than LTE and could be also used as home Internet service.
The announcement is a response to Verizon’s broadcast saying they would roll out the 5G networks by 2017. However AT&T plans to defeat its competitor on the matter, Verizon declared their rivals announcement as premature.
The AT&T company has taken the challenge seriously as it began working with Ericsson and Intel in order to begin testing 5G networks in a lab. The field tests are planned for midyear. The fight to be the first to offer the 5G technologies is on its way as countries and technology companies are battling each other. It’s important for consumers to know that 5G networks will boost Internet speeds, giving the companies a reasonable advantage over the cable industry.
The 5G networks are more likely to first arrive in home broadband networks, rather than in data-only devices such as tablets or smartphones. In spite of this, AT&T will count with the help of tech firms like Ericsson and Intel in order to determine the best way to bring 5G services to customers.
Besides smartphone’s data, the mobile company states that 5G could be also used for virtual reality, self-driving cars, robotics and massive sensor networks.
“We expect field trials of 5G technologies to provide wireless connectivity to fixed locations in Austin before the end of this year,” said AT&T at a press release. “The trial will help guide our 5G standards contribution and set the stage for widespread commercial availability once the standards for 5G are established.”
T-Mobile and Sprint join the 5G battles
As the carrier wars get more attention due to TV advertisement and in ad campaigns online, the AT&T company is ahead its competitors in the 5G races. Still, remaining in the second place among the major carriers in the U.S., Verizon recently launched an ad blitz of its new commercial “A Better Network as Explained by Colorful Balls”.
T-Mobile and Sprint have responded to the 5G-centered campaign, as they are the last two companies to join the race for the fastest network. The major companies could be threatened by these other two because of these companies’ rapid expansion and because T-Mobile recently doubled its customer base.
Sprint, on the other hand, is slashing its prices on plans with data buckets up to 25 gigabytes. The deal requires Sprint customers to port their number from one of the carrier’s nationwide rivals with the promise of a 50 percent saving on their bill.
The rival company for AT&T and Verizon has no plans of slowing its expansion, said the CTO from T-Mobile Neville Ray in a blog post from December. According to the CTO, the company is ideally positioned to continue to grow when 5G does become a reality. And regarding Sprint, the company released a new ‘unlimited’ data promotion offering up to four lines of service with unlimited data, voice and messaging service at a lower price than its rivals
Source: Huewire