AT&T's 5G network goes live on the 21st of December but only to select 12 cities

[captain_to_fire]

Source: CNET. AT&T

 

 

Quote

 

The carrier, locked in a race with Verizon and other network operators to move to the next-gen wireless technology as fast as possible, is turning on its network on Tuesday. But until 5G phones arrive in the first half of 2019, it'll only be useful with Netgear's Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot, a portable device that creates its own Wi-Fi network so you can link phones, laptops and tablets to the 5G network.

 

AT&T's 5G network will work in parts of Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas; Houston; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Florida, Louisville, Kentucky; Oklahoma City; New Orleans; Raleigh, North Carolina; San Antonio, Texas; and Waco, Texas. AT&T wouldn't comment in detail about how broadly 5G will work in those cities, but said it would arrive in "dense urban and high-traffic areas."

For 90 days the service is free but after that, they'll charge $449 for the Netgear 5G hotspot + $70 for 15GB of data. I don't think that's enough data to take advantage of 5G considering that it's supposed to have more bandwidth than 4G LTE. Also, for a measly 15GB that's expensive though considering how 5G is different than LTE when it comes to implementation, that's probably how they'll recover the costs in rolling out a 5G network. 

 

AT&T says that people can do all sorts of things with 5G like live broadcasts with little latency, VR and even gaming. AT&T is said to be using millimeter waves, more specifically 28 & 39 GHz which has so much bandwidth but easily gets obstructed by objects including rain so in order to solve it, they have to use beamforming and small cells. 

 

Quote

In the first half of 2019 we plan to deploy mobile 5G in parts of these 7 additional cities: Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.

 

“As the ecosystem evolves, this technology will ultimately change the way we live and conduct business,” said Mo Katibeh, chief marketing officer, AT&T Business. “We expect that our initial adopters will be innovative, growing businesses. They’re the starting point for what we think will be a technology revolution like we’ve never seen before.”

Remember when they said that 5G can replace wired home broadband because there's so much bandwidth left, I don't think that'll be a good impression if they're limiting their customers to a measly 15GB for $70. 

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by captain_to_fire

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Netgear 5G hotspot + $70 for 15GB of data.

lol what, that's a bit useless. Similar service here, but 4G, have 100GB data caps.

[schwellmo92]

8 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

AT&T says that people can do all sorts of things with 5G like live broadcasts with little latency, VR and even gaming

I already stream live broadcast, use VR and game on 4G LTE though, what does 5G bring that's actually useful?

[captain_to_fire]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

lol what, that's a bit useless. Similar service here, but 4G, have 100GB data caps.

I agree. My wireless carrier offers TD-LTE internet for people in rural areas at it has 150 GB/month data cap. It may not be as fast as 5G but it’s still usable and considering how much bandwidth 5G offers, AT&T kinda cheaped out. 

6 minutes ago, schwellmo92 said:

I already stream live broadcast, use VR and game on 4G LTE though, what does 5G bring that's actually useful?

More bandwidth than 4G LTE with latency less than 10 ms to enable connected cars, IoT, delivery drones, fast data upstream when you’re a reporter and don’t want high latency...basically an improvement over 4G LTE with more bandwidth to spare thanks to millimeter waves. 

[Dabombinable]

15 minutes ago, leadeater said:

lol what, that's a bit useless. Similar service here, but 4G, have 100GB data caps.

Hey, the US is having its ISP push Aussie ISP levels of pricing.

[captain_to_fire]

8 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Hey, the US is having its ISP push Aussie ISP levels of pricing.

Is NZ internet better than AU? @leadeater All I know is that Australia has NBN. 

[leadeater]

Just now, captain_to_fire said:

Is NZ internet better than AU? @leadeater All I know is that Australia has NBN. 

Yea a lot better, we stuck to the FTTH plan with FTTN (VDSL2) for rural towns and 4G 700Mhz for actual rural. 1Gbps is really common here and cheap, unlike Aus. The deployment plan was taken from the original Aus one so design wise very similar but didn't get messed with and the wholesale prices are much cheaper.

 

Rather than pull back from a majority FTTH network for a faster deployment we just accept having to wait longer for a better overall network.

[schwellmo92]

15 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

More bandwidth than 4G LTE with latency less than 10 ms to enable connected cars, IoT, delivery drones, fast data upstream when you’re a reporter and don’t want high latency...basically an improvement over 4G LTE with more bandwidth to spare thanks to millimeter waves. 

Theoretical max of LTE is 1Gbps (I get about 250Mbps at home), that's plenty fast enough and latency is only 20ms higher than my fibre.

[schwellmo92]

5 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Is NZ internet better than AU? @leadeater All I know is that Australia has NBN. 

NZ wired is but i think AU mobile/4G is better, mind you mobile/4G is still prohibitively expensive regardless.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, schwellmo92 said:

NZ wired is but i think AU mobile/4G is better, mind you mobile/4G is still prohibitively expensive regardless.

Not sure about mobile, same equipment so it would come down to pricing and radio tower density. Personally I've never had to worry about it because I've always had a company phone with unlimited data.

[williamcll]

gonna be interesting to see the benchmarks.

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, schwellmo92 said:

Theoretical max of LTE is 1Gbps (I get about 250Mbps at home), that's plenty fast enough and latency is only 20ms higher than my fibre.

@leadeater can correct me on this but from what I understand, LTE isn't even real 4G nor has there any wireless carrier who reached 1Gbps on stationary. The one that is true 4G is LTE-A and spec wise, LTE-A can achieve such theoretical speeds better than LTE. Also, today's LTE networks can easily get congested just like 3G networks from the past. I have experienced crippling LTE speeds of 1mbps down and 300 kbps up when I was in a crowded concert stadium although it's my carrier still using 5x5 LTE instead of 20x20 MHz. 

[laminutederire]

1 hour ago, schwellmo92 said:

I already stream live broadcast, use VR and game on 4G LTE though, what does 5G bring that's actually useful?

Nothing but it's a good way to make people forget they don't have 4G in most places anyway.

[leadeater]

25 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

@leadeater can correct me on this but from what I understand, LTE isn't even real 4G nor has there any wireless carrier who reached 1Gbps on stationary. The one that is true 4G is LTE-A and spec wise, LTE-A can achieve such theoretical speeds better than LTE. Also, today's LTE networks can easily get congested just like 3G networks from the past. I have experienced crippling LTE speeds of 1mbps down and 300 kbps up when I was in a crowded concert stadium although it's my carrier still using 5x5 LTE instead of 20x20 MHz. 

That's one of the biggest problems even for standard wifi, the client management overhead and time division has a big impact and it comes on like hitting a brick wall. Once you go over the maximum number of users for service quality the drop off is extremely sharp. Having worked with wifi managing that was some of the biggest features and reasons to deploy Aurba/Ruckus etc that could do client steering and hand off before it became common to the wireless spec and then integrated in to wireless controllers in client devices to enhance it even further. Cheaper wireless solutions you'd have problems with sticky clients or poor balancing between APs so even if you tried to deploy more APs to improve service quality it didn't really work, so you'd have 50 clients on AP1 and 10 on AP2 rather than the more ideal 30 and 30.

 

Far as LTE goes from what I understand it's more 3G augmented and enhanced, it's not actually 4G. The 4G spec is much harder to reach, LTE is sort of like 'it can be 4G but only when not busy' but for mobile clients only not stationary as the 4G spec requires 1Gbps peak for that. LTE-A and WiMAX 2 are 4G though, I'm not sure reusing the LTE name was a good idea though, at least not from consumer identification standpoint.

[Mooshi]

15GB for streaming service is about as useful as a condom with holes poked in it.

[Coaxialgamer]

3 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

I already stream live broadcast, use VR and game on 4G LTE though, what does 5G bring that's actually useful?

As far as i can tell, don't expect 5G to be "just faster 4G". It will do that just fine of course, but the architecture of the network is different, and will serve as the backbone for IOT and self driving cars. 

[Kochiha Ichihara]

Depending on which 5G architecture ends up getting used, I hear there's a couple in concurrent development.

[TVwazhere]

5 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

live broadcasts with little latency, VR and even gaming

5 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

$70 for 15GB of data.

The early adopters tax at it's finest. 

[Noctus]

12 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

The early adopters tax at it's finest. 

Anyone who takes up that offer is a fucking retard and deserves to be milked for all their money.

[Doobeedoo]

Data caps and with faster speeds OMEGALUL

[BuckGup]

Yay cancer

[suicidalfranco]

>70$

>15GB

>500$ hotspot

Excuse me but: what the F?

[Drak3]

7 hours ago, Coaxialgamer said:

As far as i can tell, don't expect 5G to be "just faster 4G". It will do that just fine of course, but the architecture of the network is different, and will serve as the backbone for IOT and self driving cars. 

Something about that seems like a recipe for disaster.

[Fnige]

10 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

Is NZ internet better than AU? @leadeater All I know is that Australia has NBN. 

 

[Fnige]

YAY, WE HAVE 5G(eezus) Today

Oh wait... we're ahead by one day... Wait... Not my city... DAMN