AT&T Crows About Their 5G Testing

DooKey

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AT&T has been testing their 5G technology for two years now and say it's really going to help them push out 5G in a successful manner later this year. They found that their tech isn't impacted by rain, snow or other weather and they can get 1Gbps speeds up to 900 feet away under line of sight conditions. Also, latency is much reduced and this tech could end up being great for online gaming. Overall, it appears that they will be able to put a robust service out there that has high-speed and low latency. Now they just need to get rid of their ridiculous data caps.

By conducting these trials and inventing specialized measurement equipment to study other aspects of 5G in great detail, we collected mountains of data and insights to comb through, obsess over and ultimately act on. These trial learnings are guiding our commercial 5G launches this year and will help ensure we’re building a 5G network that is both real and reliable for everyone.
 
900 ft isn't big enough. It needs to be quadruple that. If they can keep half a gigabit past 3600 feet, then I'll be impressed.
 
Data cap be the big issue with this kind of network speed. But this isn't going to help anyone but in high populated areas, and since I am moving to a rural community, my reaction is "meh."
 
The same 5G standard that just received its first final approval for part of it about 4 months ago?

900' range for 1Gbps. Just how close together are they planning on putting these antennas anyway?
 
sweet now we can get 5G service with all the free bloatware in the world from ATT for a low price for $39.99 for six months then $89.99 for your soul and eternity with a friendly 2GB data cap.
 
AT&T has been testing their 5G technology for two years now and say it's really going to help them push out 5G in a successful manner later this year. They found that their tech isn't impacted by rain, snow or other weather and they can get 1Gbps speeds up to 900 feet away under line of sight conditions. Also, latency is much reduced and this tech could end up being great for online gaming. Overall, it appears that they will be able to put a robust service out there that has high-speed and low latency. Now they just need to get rid of their ridiculous data caps.

By conducting these trials and inventing specialized measurement equipment to study other aspects of 5G in great detail, we collected mountains of data and insights to comb through, obsess over and ultimately act on. These trial learnings are guiding our commercial 5G launches this year and will help ensure we’re building a 5G network that is both real and reliable for everyone.

900 feet away is laughable. Even 3600 feet is not that impressive. Try more like 2 miles away and I will be more impressed...
 
900 feet away is laughable. Even 3600 feet is not that impressive. Try more like 2 miles away and I will be more impressed...

While I hear you, doing anything like this in the mmWave range is really hard to get any range and actually have it work. When working with 28G, 60G, 70G, etc. the pole you're mounting to has way more affect than you would expect. If they have all steel poles that are under 50 feet tall, that's how you get 900 feet.
 
None of us will care as long as they have crazy data caps. Especially as we stream more and more 4k then 8k etc eventually. This will get worse.
 
Now please ATT&T tell me what I'll get at 5 miles since that's the distance to your nearest tower from me. I won't hold my breath with anticipation at the miracle of 5g. Oh and please remove my 22GB cap that goes with my "unlimited" account.
 
The only reason I see, as a former ATT employee, I can see the push for 5G is so everyone hits the data cap sooner and gets billed more.
 
This is why everyone is looking at microcells. They will put up small equipment all over the place so that 1000ft - 2000ft from one cell is another cell. Device would cover both directions so you are looking at a location covering about 500 - 1000ft from itself.
 
ATT says the only thing keeping them from deploying is the prevention their merging with Time Warner.
 
game streaming will boom with 5G, might even be the end of consoles, and high end PCs.
 
In my experience I can totally live with 1mbps for my phone internet, the problem is data caps.

If this technology means higher overall bandwidth per tower then they could increase datacaps which is the limiting factor
 
Let’s be clear here, AFAIK the entire test was PTMP. A radio with an external antenna (not necessarily outside, but I believe directional antenna external to the radio) going to a router.

If this is true then it was meant for replacing your home internet without the wired connection to the WAN. I doubt this tech is meant for use in a cellphone directly. MmWave dissipates way too quickly for that.

I agree that 1000ft from a broadcast node is way too short to be of use in 90% of areas, especially when you consider there is signal degradation through foliage even if it “still works”. Even at 3000ft you are talking about an FCC License, easement, a power meter, fiber demarc, radio equipment and a router EVERY 3000ft. That’s dumb, just running fiber to every house is cheaper than that, plus no recurring electric bill because everything in the field is passive.

Why do you think AT&T cancelled their FTTN rollout? Because powered equipment in the field every 5000ft is a waste of money. It’s much cheaper to leverage a single OLT to serve thousands of customers rather than a power meter for every 350 customers, plus maintaining batteries, filters, HVAC and providing backup power via a generator.

Now that fiber is actually cheaper than copper to install & maintain they are actually moving forward with more FTTP builds.
 
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Let’s be clear here, AFAIK the entire test was PTMP. A radio with an external antenna (not necessarily outside, but I believe directional antenna external to the radio) going to a router.

If this is true then it was meant for replacing your home internet without the wired connection to the WAN. I doubt this tech is meant for use in a cellphone directly. MmWave dissipates way too quickly for that.

I agree that 1000ft from a broadcast node is way too short to be of use in 90% of areas, especially when you consider there is signal degradation through foliage even if it “still works”. Even at 3000ft you are talking about an FCC License, easement, a power meter, fiber demarc, radio equipment and a router EVERY 3000ft. That’s dumb, just running fiber to every house is cheaper than that, plus no recurring electric bill because everything in the field is passive.

Why do you think AT&T cancelled their FTTN rollout? Because powered equipment in the field every 5000ft is a waste of money. It’s much cheaper to leverage a single OLT to serve thousands of customers rather than a power meter for every 350 customers, plus maintaining batteries, filters, HVAC and providing backup power via a generator.

Now that fiber is actually cheaper than copper to install & maintain they are actually moving forward with more FTTP builds.

Correct 5G will never be used for phones. it is only being planned as a replacement for fixed wireless.
 
4G standard is 100mbs up to 1GBs...so AT&T is bragging that they can deliver 4g speeds over 5G?..color me impressed....not.
 
thats what you think its coming

I work in the telecommunication industry. That is what has been said at every event I have been to for the past year. I was just at one two months ago. Everyone who currently has / is deploying 5G is doing it as a replacement for their fixed wireless and said that is what they are doing. They are trying to get 100 - 300Mbps to the home via wireless. I sat through panels about technology trends and any that brought up 5G, said that 5G is being deployed as a fixed location service and that is what the desire is. Nobody wants to try to get you 1Gbps to your phone as there is little need for that right now, they want to be able to get faster speeds to the home / business but without investing in fiber to every home. When 5G takes off in a few years you won't see all cell networks switching to 5G and every phone giving you 1Gbps of service. If you do see any phone say 5G it will just be to get sells using the new buzz word, but the network focus will be on getting you faster speed to the home. Look at AT&T right now, you can get free internet at your house if you have AT&T cell phones, they want to take you away from who ever is wired in to your home. Especially since they can then sell you more data or charge you for going over your data plan. We will give you unlimited data... however after 15Gbps we will slow you down to 256Kbps unless you pay us for the unlimited unlimited plan.
 
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