AT&T has been pushing ahead with 5G in recent months, and now it is looking to showcase 5G connectivity on the 28GHz spectrum band with Charter, in Los Angeles this summer. The company has requested permission from the FCC to use this band to do this demonstration, though the FCC has not yet commented on this. AT&T is planning to showcase 5G at the SHAPE event, which is taking place June 2nd and 3rd at the Warner Bros. Studios, which are located in Burbank, California. AT&T describes the SHAPE conference as “an immersive event exploring the convergence of technology and entertainment.”AT&T also says that attendees will be able to discover the cutting edge of content creation and distribution, through new technologies like 5G.
For this demonstration, AT&T is planning to use a “puck” that would work as a mobile hotspot, and use millimeter wave along with this higher-frequency spectrum that it is asking the FCC if it can use. The “puck” is essentially a mobile hotspot, bot in looks but also in functionality. It’s actually something that other carriers have made fun of AT&T for using, but it works, according to the company. AT&T is planning to launch 5G in a number of cities this year, including its home market of Dallas, as well as Waco, Texas and Atlanta. So AT&T won’t be launching a nationwide 5G network this year, but it will have a 5G network up and running. The next step, is obviously, 5G devices. Which might be happening a bit later on down the road. As many smartphone makers are looking to launch 5G devices in 2019.
5G is something that will likely become a reality in 2019, even in a limited capacity. 5G is really not that much different from 4G LTE, the main difference here is the extra bandwidth and capacity, which is going to allow for faster data speeds. That is how you will be able to get data speeds that are measured in Gigabits per second instead of Megabits. Which is still pretty impressive, but it also means that carriers should be able to build it out pretty quickly.