Just hours after Verizon chose Samsung to lead its push for commercial adoption of 5G services in the U.S. before the end of 2018, AT&T has made an even bolder statement regarding the same.
The giant telco, which is only surpassed by the Big Red when it comes to coverage in the U.S., has set its eyes on becoming the first carrier in the country to provide 5G services to the general public. As opposed to other carriers that are simply running 5G tests by beaming signals between still antennas, AT&T is adamant that it will win this race, which also involves T-Mobile and Sprint, by introducing a commercial mobile service in at least a dozen cities across the U.S. All this is set to happen this year, but we don’t have any specific dates.
The reason these carriers are pushing for faster internet connections is so that they can get better at offering the many emerging services that are resource intensive to their customers. These include virtual reality, augmented reality, 4K video, online gaming and even self-driving cars, among others.
During its trials, Verizon said it was able to determine that environmental factors have no effect on the delivery of quality 5G services. This has always been the major problem surrounding wireless networks, where connectivity can turn from good to worse with changing weather conditions, be it rain or snow. If this is indeed the case, it seems engineers have had a breakthrough in their efforts to work around the interference caused by nature.
According to AT&T, 5G network upgrades efforts are already underway in 23 cities across the U.S., but the details of where exactly the service will be launched initially remain privy only to the company. Still, if AT&T is indeed to launch 5G services in the U.S. ahead of Verizon and co., this should probably happen in H1 2018. In case you didn’t know, Verizon has stated that it will be ready to roll out the network beginning H2 2018, but like AT&T, there are no specific dates. Only time will tell.
