After 4G has become a synonym to LTE, 5G is making its way to the telecommunications market. American Center for Mobility and tech giant AT&T is all set to roll out the 5G service in coming months. The company will initiate 5G connectivity with Austin and Indianapolis, offering a speed of 400Mbps or higher.
The high-speed network program has been named “5G Evolution” and is part of AT&T’s Network 3.0 Indigo initiative. The company is detailing its progress at a recent event held in San Francisco on Wednesday. John Donovan, the chief strategy officer and group president, Technology and Operations expressed his views at event and said,
Indigo is our term for a world where it isn’t just your connection speeds that are accelerating, but every element of the network becomes more seamless, efficient and capable. It is a living, evolving, upgradeable platform. Think of Indigo like the operating system on your phone. We’re taking that model to the network.
Moreover, the telecommunications conglomerate is building two new 5G testbeds which will go on-air this spring at the AT&T Labs in Austin. The company also launched its 5G business customer trial in Austin, the past year. The testbeds being built will not only support existing work for AT &T but as well conduct trials using a fixed wireless connection.
The company will introduce 5G network for both fixed and mobile solutions. AT&T plans to develop a flexible infrastructure for its network range so that it can modify the web as per standard developed for these services. The company will partner with multiple vendors and explore 5G signal coverage for the 28GHz, 39GHz, and sub-6GHz frequency bands.
AT&T further expects that to increase the speed of its connection to 1Gbps in some areas by the end of 2017. The company will use software advancements to improve the performance and enhance capabilities of the existing hardware. This will, in turn, bring down upgrade costs and increase speed without bothering the company to make significant network infrastructure investments. This evolution will provide 40 percent faster speed when compared to standard cellular data range prevalent in the market.
The news brings other carrier giants such as Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint to a circle of threat. The company is also working towards the development of self-driving cars, internet of things, artificial intelligence, and cyber security. 5G extends the diverse range of operations, the company has been working on. Though International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has set the date for commercialization of 5G for 2020, we can already witness the progress in the data industry.
