Dec 23, 2024 | Updated: 11:35 AM EDT
Apr 27, 2017 11:35 AM EDT
On Tuesday, ATT announced that it has started use of 5G Evolution in Austin, Texas, and Samsung Galaxy S8 users can start experiencing it as the phone features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chipset, that supports data transfers at up to gigabit speed.
The standards for 5G have not been finalized yet, so calling a service4G is ambiguous. ATT's 5G is just an up gradation of its existing 4G LTE network and it is claimed that ATT's 5G is twice faster than4G LTE network. However, AT&T claims that the evolution network can lay the foundation for future development of 5G.
Although AT&T brings the faster speed of 1 Gbps, but it not even close to what true 5G is supposed to offer.It is fast but not 5G because the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)have not yet standardized 5G. it is just a marketing strategy to sell the technology as was done earlier by ATT, T-Mobile, and Sprint to sell technologies like HSPA+ and WiMAX, options on a 3G customary as 4G, much before LTE was even introduced
According to Open Signal, 5G Evolution utilizes carrier aggregation, 4×4 Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) and 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) to deliver faster data speeds, the same enhancements T-Mobile brought to its existing LTE network all the way back in September.
AT&T plans to bring 5G to over 20 major metro areas by the end of 2017. Austin will be first to receive the 5G technology. The operator said they are planning to bring 5G to Indianapolis next. It will announce timing for the additional metros in the months ahead. Some of the cities included in the plan are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Nashville, Tennessee next, as per Digital Trends.
Taking the full advantage of AT&T's improvements, it is possible that other phones running on Snapdragon 835, or using even more powerful system-on-chip with support for faster data speeds, will also be launched by the end of 2017.
