AT&T is collecting large data sets from 5G field trials with real people and so far the results are encouraging, writes Melissa Arnoldi is president, AT&T Technology & Operations, in a blog posting this week.
Citing her posted results:
Waco, Texas
Participants: Small and mid-sized businesses
- Provided 5G mmWave service to a retail location more than 150 meters away from the cell site and observed wireless speeds of approximately 1.2 Gbps in a 400 MHz channel.
- Observed latency rates at 9-12 milliseconds.
- Latency impacts things like the time between pressing play and seeing a video start to stream or hitting a web link and seeing a webpage begin to load. For context, MIT researchers discovered the human brain “latency” is 13 milliseconds.
- Supported hundreds of simultaneously connected users using the 5G network.
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Participants: Small businesses
- Observed no impacts on 5G mmWave signal performance due to rain, snow or other weather events.
- Learned mmWave signals can penetrate materials such as significant foliage, glass and even walls better than initially anticipated.
- Observed more than 1 Gbps speeds under line of sight conditions up to 900 feet. That’s equal to the length of 3 football fields.
South Bend, Indiana
Participants: Small business and residential customers
- Observed a full end-to-end 5G network architecture, including the 5G radio system and core, demonstrating extremely low latency.
- Successfully provided gigabit wireless speeds on mmWave spectrum in both line of sight and some non-line of sight conditions.
http://about.att.com/innovationblog/two_years_of_5g_tria
AT&T updates its 5G and FTT rollout plans
AT&T confirmed plans to roll out mobile 5G service in a dozen U.S. markets by late 2018, making it the first U.S. carrier to do so. The initial launch is aimed at consumers. Trials of 5G business applications are also planned this year.
The company also updated its plans in the following areas:
- LTE-LAA – AT&T, which deployed its first commercial LTE-Licensed Assisted Access (LTE-LAA) site in downtown Indianapolis in November 2017, now says it intends to launch the technology in at least 2 dozen additional metros this year. LAA offers theoretical peak speeds of up to 1 Gbps. In previous field tests, AT&T observed actual peak wireless speeds of 979 Mbps.
- AT&T 5G Evolution – this series of upgrades based on LTE-Advanced technologies launched in 23 major metros in 2017. Further rollouts are underway.
- LTE-M – AT&T’s nationwide, low-power, wide-area LTE-M network went live in 2017. LTE-M supports large-scale IoT applications, like smart city services, smart metering, asset tracking, supply chain management, security and alarm monitoring, and personal wearables.
- Fixed Wireless Internet – in 2017, AT& launched high-speed internet access to over 440,000 locations across 18 states in mostly rural areas through technologies like Fixed Wireless Internet, as part of the FCC Connect America Fund. In 2018, AT&T plans to reach over 660,000 total locations in 2018 and 1.1 million locations by the end of 2020 in those 18 states.
- Fixed 5G and AirGig – AT&T has pre-standard 5G fixed wireless trials underway in Austin, Texas; Waco, Texas; Kalamazoo, Michigan and South Bend, Indiana with residential, small business, and education customers. The company has also announced 2 trials of its AirGig technology, which targets transport for ultra-fast low latency internet over power lines.
- Fiber for Consumers and Businesses – AT&T Fiber currently reaches more than 7 million locations across 67 metros nationwide. This year, AT&T plans to add 3 million more locations on. By mid-2019, AT&T Fiber should reach at least 12.5 million locations across at least 82 metro area/
- G.fast – In 2017, AT&T launched G.fast service supporting Internet speeds up to 500 Mbps for multifamily properties across 8 metro areas outside of its 21-state traditional service area. AT&T now to extend G.fast to apartment communities.
