AT&T will start testing a new 5G network in the cities of Austin and Indianapolis, which will have a peak speed of about 400Mbps, in the next few months of this year.
It was announced today at an event in San Francisco, where AT&T stated that they would begin laying the infrastructural background for the high-speed wireless networks in Austin, TX, and Indianapolis, and it is scheduled to be operative in 2020.
The 5G connection will be known on the market under the names of “Network 3.0” or “Indigo,” where its platform will be designed to replace the old network hardware elements with software, being a “modern” method of mobile data network connection.
AT&T is aiming at a 400Mbps mobile network by 2020
From 2007 until this year, the data on AT&T’s mobile network has increased about 250,000 percent, all of this thanks to videos mainly.
These days about 34 percent of the mobile data is used this way, but the company estimates to manage about 75 percent of the mobile network by the year 2020, where “Indigo” might be released, and hopefully, at his best condition for its full enjoyment.
The prototype test expects that the speed connection should be peaking 400Mbps, which is about 40 times faster than the standard cellular data connection. However, AT&T expects to reach a theoretical speed up to 1Gbps.
AT&T wants to offer fast Internet in Austin’s rural zones
The first city with a special treatment will be Austin, TX, where they will be “hosting” AT&T’s 5G technology, with tests made indoor and outdoor, and more specifically, on their rural zones where the signal is “weaker” or “slower.”
That is actually the main reason for AT&T to roll out the 5G connection test at Austin and Indianapolis. With this, they expect to have about 400,000 customers connected with “Indigo” by the end of the year.
“Our goal is to bring really fast Internet to our customers, whatever the technology is,” said Eric Boyer, who is AT&T’s senior vice president for wired and wireless product marketing.
So, “Indigo” will actually have a peak speed of 400Mbps as said before, but many people argue that “true” 5G should be about 1Gbps, yet AT&T have not stated that they were not working on it.
However, there is no phone yet that could stand a 5G connection, but it’s known that many mobile companies might be working on it to enjoy this new connection at his best.
Source: PR Newswire