You’ve probably heard carriers begin to talk about 5G coming soon. While no carrier has officially rolled out the tech, and there have been various implementations, it’s coming sooner rather than later.
AT&T previously announced half of the 12 cities that will be getting 5G mobile service before the end of 2018. Now, the company’s CEO has shared that it will be the first US carrier to offer standards-based 5G by launching the service “in the next few weeks.”
After announcing the details for its new 5G home internet service last month, Verizon is now getting the first customers hooked up as it offers a free Apple TV and three months of YouTube TV along with the service.
When it comes to rolling out a new network standard like 5G, there are a lot of moving parts involved, and just as many obstacles. One of the biggest challenges to the upcoming move to 5G cellular technology is producing eligible millimeter wave antennas that are small enough that can fit inside modern smartphones. Qualcomm has been hard at work at producing an antenna module, the QTM052, capable of operating at the high frequencies required for 5G. The production of such a small antenna means that one of the biggest hurdles to making next-generation 5G technology a reality has been cleared.
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AT&T promised in January to launch mobile 5G service in a dozen cities by the end of the year, though without naming any of them at the time. It later named three of them, and has now added the next three …
A new report claims Apple has notified Intel that it will not use the chipmaker’s radio chips in its 2020 iPhones. It goes on to say that as Apple was the primary customer for the combined 5G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, Intel has now halted development of the product and disbanded the team working on it …
We don’t yet know when Apple will choose to support 5G in future iPhones and iPads, but the telecoms industry is gearing-up to have at least some level of 5G service operational next year.
One critical element of making 5G connectivity widely available is ensuring enough cells in cities – with ‘small cells’ key to this …
Carriers have made it clear that 5G is the next big thing for mobile technology, with AT&T targeting the end of this year for a rollout to a dozen markets. To show the power of 5G, however, Fox Sports is partnering with AT&T, Intel, and Ericsson to use 5G technology to broadcast the upcoming U.S. Open Championship in 4K HDR…
Apple has urged the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to leave the so-called ‘super-high’ radio spectrum free for use for 5G and other uses that may be developed later.
The FCC licenses a number of different radio spectrums, which means that they are reserved for a specific purpose, like mobile voice calls or television. Unlicensed radio spectrum can be used for a variety of purposes, and Apple wants to see frequencies in the 95GHz to 3000GHz range remain unlicensed …
AT&T last week named the first cities to get access to its 5G rollout, and now Sprint has done the same for its network.
Interestingly, of the three cities named by AT&T and the six by Sprint, two of them are set to see 5G service from both carriers …
If Apple’s history is anything to go by, access to high-speed 5G services is likely to come to Android phones ahead of iPhones – but there could be a handy workaround. It’s looking like the first 5G devices to go on sale won’t be phones at all, but rather mobile hotspots …
AT&T promised it would start rolling out what it claims will be the first true mobile 5G service before the end of the year, and it has just announced the first three cities in line to receive it.
We plan to offer mobile 5G to customers in a dozen cities, including parts of Dallas, Atlanta and Waco, Texas, by the end of this year. We’ll announce additional cities in the coming months.
The company says that the commercial rollout follows multi-city trials …
Update: FCC chairman Ajit Pai has issued a statement strongly opposing the idea.
I oppose any proposal for the federal government to build and operate a nationwide 5G network. The main lesson to draw from the wireless sector’s development over the past three decades—including American leadership in 4G—is that the market, not government, is best positioned to drive innovation and investment. What government can and should do is to push spectrum into the commercial marketplace and set rules that encourage the private sector to develop and deploy next-generation infrastructure. Any federal effort to construct a nationalized 5G network would be a costly and counterproductive distraction from the policies we need to help the United States win the 5G future.
The Trump administration is considering nationalising the 5G network in what has been described as ‘an unprecedented federal takeover of a portion of the nation’s mobile network.’
The proposal is said to be in response to perceived cyber security threats from China …
A fourth Apple patent application for 5G technology has today been published by the US Patent & Trademark Office. 5G will be the next step up in mobile data, and could offer speeds more than ten times faster than today’s LTE/4G networks.
The patent application was published shortly after AT&T announced plans to be the first U.S. carrier to launch mobile 5G …
Apple has recently received official approval from the FCC to test 5G wireless broadband. The company was granted permission in the form of an experimental license to test millimeter wave technology at two locations near its offices in Milpitas, California (via DSL Reports).
Apple appears to be testing next-generation 5G data speeds, Business Insider reports. The specific wireless technology is called millimeter wave which could ultimately improve cellular performance for iPhones and other connected devices.
T-Mobile’s CEO John Legere has shared the company’s plans for brining true 5G coverage to its customers in a new video. However, before sharing details about T-Mobile’s strategy, Legere takes some time to point out AT&T and Verizon’s recent Q1 results and shares ideas on why he believes their 5G claims are misleading and their plans flawed.
Intel has just announced the world’s first global 5G modem to help test initial 5G spectrum deployments across the world. As timing would have it, AT&T also announced their “5G Evolution” plans for 2017, which detail what they hope to achieve with the new wireless technology.
Verizon began lab-testing its 5G network last year, aiming to carry out the first real-world tests this year, and AT&T has now announced that it will be doing the same. The company seems even more optimistic than Verizon, which estimated 5G speeds some 30-50 times faster than LTE.
We expect 5G to deliver speeds 10-100 times faster than today’s average 4G LTE connections. Customers will see speeds measured in gigabits per second, not megabits. For reference, at one gigabit per second, you can download a TV show in less than 3 seconds.
Don’t get too excited just yet, though, as there are a couple of small hurdles to be overcome first …
5G could even make Google Fiber look slow …
Early tests of Verizon‘s 5G technology show that it can achieve connection speeds 30-50 times faster than 4G/LTE – above the speeds offered by Google Fiber’s gigabit wired broadband. Even better, the company expects to have “some level of commercial deployment” by 2017, some three years earlier than expected, reports CNET.
To put that speed difference into perspective, the movie Guardians of the Galaxy would take around six minutes to download over a good LTE connection – while 5G would have it downloaded to your device in just 15 seconds …
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