AT&T to start roll-out of mobile 5G in Dallas, Atlanta, Waco this year

Nieuws Mobiel Verenigde Staten 21 FEB 2018
AT&T to start roll-out of mobile 5G in Dallas, Atlanta, Waco this year
AT&T has said it will be aggressively pushing 5G deployment this year and beyond with the introduction of mobile 5G in many cities, extending its 5G Evolution to more cities and expanding the virtualisation of its network. To help meet its goals, it will be opening a new 5G test lab in Austin, Texas. Mobile 5G will be launched by the end of this year in a dozen cities, including part of Dallas, Atlanta and Waco, Texas. It will also add more 5G capable mobile devices and smartphones to its lineup from early 2019. 

AT&T launched 5G Evolution last year and plans to offer the faster services broadly by the end of the year. It also launched LTE-Licensed Assisted Access (LTE-LAA) in parts of Indianapolis last year. The service is now also live in parts of Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. AT&T also said it plans to virtualize 75 percent of its network by 2020, after reaching its 2017 goal of 55 percent.

The new lab in Austin will test systems, applications, equipment and devices from different vendors before these are rolled out. The lab is also equipped with an outdoor 5G testbed to trial a variety of 5G applications and real-world use cases, including the Advanced 5G NR Testbed System (ANTS), proprietary to AT&T. ANTS will let the carrier test unique and forward-looking features on a simulated 5G network for eventual standardisation and use on a commercial network. 

Initial mobile 5G deployments this year will be based on 3GPP standards and operate over mmWave spectrum.

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