AT&T announced its 5G Evolution plans for 2017 and beyond, including the growing possibility that it will offer fixed 5G residential access for video services. Some highlights:
- AT&T is working with more than a dozen global technology companies around 5G standards efforts
- 5G lab trials are already achieving speeds up to 14 Gbps over a wireless connection.
- 5G lab trials have demonstrated less than 3 milliseconds of latency. The industry expectation for 5G is latency less than 5 milliseconds.
- 1 Gbps Speeds in 2017: AT&T’s continued deployment of its 4G LTE-Advanced network is expected to deliver peak theoretical speeds of up to 1 Gbps at some cell sites in 2017. AT&T is currently deploying three-way carrier aggregation in select areas, and plans to introduce four-way carrier aggregation as well as LTE-License Assisted Access (LAA) this year.
- 5G Video Trial with DIRECTV NOW: In the first half of 2017, AT&T plans to conduct a trial in Austin where residential customers can stream DIRECTV NOW video service over a fixed wireless 5G connection. The trial will include next-generation entertainment services over fixed 5G connections. The trial will evaluate how fixed wireless mmWave technology handles heavy video traffic.
- First 5G Business Customer Trial: the industry’s first 5G business customer trial is underway in Austin with Intel and Ericsson using millimeter wave (mmWave) technology, which can deliver multi-gigabit speeds using an unlicensed band of spectrum.
- Additional 5G Trials: AT&T recently announced plans to team up with Qualcomm Technologies and Ericsson for mobile and fixed wireless trials in the second half of 2017.
“Our 5G Evolution plans will pave the way to the next-generation of higher speeds for customers. We’re not waiting until the final standards are set to lay the foundation for our evolution to 5G. We’re executing now,” said John Donovan, chief strategy officer and group president, Technology and Operations. “Data on our mobile network has increased about 250,000% since 2007, and the majority of that traffic is video. 5G’s promise of greater speed and overall network performance brings huge opportunities not only for video but in the Internet of Things, 4K video, augmented and virtual reality, smart home and cities, autonomous vehicles and much more.”
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