AT&T's 5G Data Speeds Hit 10 Gbps in the Lab as Testing Expands

[ptb42]

Before you get too excited, keep in mind that this will be limited to urban areas where the provider can deploy lots of small cells. The range of any one cell will be much smaller, compared to today's 4G/LTE cells.

The FCC is proposing 5G bands starting at 28 GHZ to as high as 71 GHz. But, there's a lot of total bandwidth available in these ranges, so there's a potential for much higher data rates.

Addition: These are the proposed new bands for mobile use:

27.6-28.35 GHz (750 Mhz)
38.6-40 GHz (1.4 GHz)
37-38.6 GHz (1.6 GHz)
65-71 GHz (6 GHz)

The number in parentheses is the total bandwidth for that band. Consider the smallest one: 750 MHz. That's almost the same amount of bandwidth allocated for EVERYTHING up to the lowest-frequency cell phone band.

Add the first three bands, and you get 3.75 GHz. That's as much as every bit of current spectrum in use, below the lowest fixed-satellite band (that starts at 3.7 GHz).

This is an older frequency allocation chart (2011), but it gives you an idea of what everything at the lower frequencies are used for. Keep in mind that starting with the third row, each row represents 10 times as much bandwidth as the row above it:

 

[asleep]

Glad I held onto my unlimited data plan.

 

[gsmornot]

Glad I held onto my unlimited data plan.

I let mine go but later picked it up again by having Directv. 4 lines on the plan all with unlimited everything, never thought I would see that option again. This time, not letting it go.

 

[2457282]

Really? LTE is already faster than the broadband I'm getting from Comcast.

The reason I haven't cut off Comcast is because it's cheaper to have a 6 GB plan from AT&T while I'm away from home + unlimited from Comcast while I am home than I would be to get a 50 GB plan from AT&T.

I just need AT&T to reduce their rates for me to drop Comcast entirely.

I work from home as does my wife often enough that I need about 100gig plan. I pay comcrap $75 bucks for extra speed. If my current my current 15gig plan plus $75 would get me to 100gigs I would jump.

 

[weave]

If they did this right, they could decimate Comcast and the other ISPs by replacing cable and allowing streaming TV over wireless. Imagine how they could bring costs down by only having to maintain physical cabling plant to individual towers and not to every single home.

But no -- they'll just try to bleed every last dime out of mobile phone subscribers instead with unrealistic caps and high cost...

 

[furi0usbee]

Why? We don't need that speed, and only so they can charge us more for something we don't need?

 

[kdarling]

At these speeds, I could replace my Comcrap cable and finally cut the last "cable" into the house (cable TV and Phone already gone).

That's exactly what carriers are thinking of using 5G for... to cover thousands of homes without laying cable of any kind.

For smartphones, it'd be kind of overkill at this point.

 

[MillieWales]

I'd settle for a decent 3G type speed at home or mobile, I barely get a mobile signal at home and if our home broadband runs at anything near 1meg we are happy. People talking about 30, 50, 300meg etc don't realise how lucky they are!

 

[sundragon]

Great, so now I can blow through my monthly data allowance in a mere second or two.

Favorite quote!

 

[ryanasimov]

Meh, I'll wait for 6G

If you're waiting, I'd suggest waiting for the more refined 6G S.

 

[lunarworks]

10 gbps?

That's practically a million times faster than the 14.4 kbps modems we had in the early '90s.

Wild.

 

[Avenged110]

Ha, I still use EDGE day-to-day. Much stronger signal and dramatically better battery life. Granted I'm on Tmobile, but still; I prefer other network improvements to speed.

 

[mildocjr]

AT&T testing 5G speeds... 10 GB in 8 seconds... hmm, that's pretty quick but they better increase their data caps. Could you imaging throttling, "I get 10 Gbps for the first 2 seconds then I'm back on 3G speeds for the rest of the month."

Note: This is a joke, not meant to be serious.

 

[Agent OrangeZ]

10 gigabytes in 8 seconds... (Assuming full speed downloads)

Wow.

Capitalization is key! It says 10 Gbps. NOT 10 GBps. This is 10 GigaBITS per second not 10 GigaBYTES per second.

10 Gigabits is roughly 1.25 Gigabytes. Still crazy fast... but not what you were thinking.

 

[sailmac]

steaming pile of goat phlegm

That made me chuckle. Hadn't heard that specific phrase before.

 

[TechZeke]

dont really care about speeds that high, rather useless. lower my bill and give me unlimited without any tricks. work on your heavily congested areas like orlando instead

Agreed. As 5-6 year AT&T Customer, I'd like to see more investment in the network and giving better data plans like true unlimited.

You haven't seen heavily congested unless you were at the opening of the new light rail extension to Santa Monica here in southern California. SM and the pier is a usual mess, but all the people coming off the new rail line made data pretty much unusable. I couldn't even load Google Maps with 5 bars to find an alternate bus home so I didn't have to wait on the line to go back on the train. My phone was basically useless.

 

[B4U]

dont really care about speeds that high, rather useless. lower my bill and give me unlimited without any tricks. work on your heavily congested areas like orlando instead

Thank you for the post of the day!
The bill is ridiculous for a mere 3GB

 

[BigHonkingDeal]

That sounds great but I wish they would work on 4G LTE speeds in my house..... in a flat state, major city two miles from the beach...... Here are my results from 2 minutes ago.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

What you do with your connection today does not describe what you might do when this is ready for full-time use. This is about 4 years out, did you need what you have now 4 years ago?

Yea, you might be right about that. But 10Gbps is an extreme jump. But then again, it is equivalent to going from Edge speeds to LTE, which I believe was the same amount of time give or take .

 

[azentropy]

Unless this is going to greatly improve carrier's bandwidth so our allowances go way up I don't really care for my cell phone. I'm guessing they are thinking this will replace home internet too though.

 

[ptb42]

That's exactly what carriers are thinking of using 5G for... to cover thousands of homes without laying cable of any kind.

They would need some cable, for backhaul. But, maybe they could lease it from someone that has the cable in the the ground.

Or, they could use point-to-point, as the FCC is considering mm-wave spectrum allocations for that. Or, they could use a mesh-network design... But that could introduce latency issues.

However, I expect there will be some mm-wave spectrum eventually allocated for fixed wireless, as well. Perhaps that will provide viable alternatives to incumbent telcos and cablecos.

For smartphones, it'd be kind of overkill at this point.

Smartphones could be used for delivering mobile video. That's already happening on a limited basis, but everything currently distributed via DirecTV or FIOS could be made available to a subscriber's phone.

Smartphone video is relatively low resolution, but a phone could be a gateway to other devices. I use mine as a hotspot for at least three.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Capitalization is key! It says 10 Gbps. NOT 10 GBps. This is 10 GigaBITS per second not 10 GigaBYTES per second.

10 Gigabits is roughly 1.25 Gigabytes. Still crazy fast... but not what you were thinking.

he stated 10 GB in *8* seconds, where was he wrong?

 

[Cmd-Z]

Unless this is going to greatly improve carrier's bandwidth so our allowances go way up I don't really care for my cell phone. I'm guessing they are thinking this will replace home internet too though.

Yes, and beyond. The speeds involved with 5G take wireless communication far beyond our narrow view of just cell phone applications. 5G is meant also, perhaps primarily, for non-consumer use. Think industrial automation, transmission for data centers, autonomous vehicles, and yes personal communication.

Open your eyes kids, 5G is not gonna be like your Dad's cellular network ...

 

[Rocketman]

I'm not so sure about that. Maybe not in Austin but I wager in many places the limit is indeed the backhaul.

Where the backhaul is limited the population density is lower too. Mostly. It is the prevue of network managers to bring new capacity to weak areas and the FEDGOV has actually budgeted funds for rural areas for backhaul co-investment.

 

[bliggs]

dont really care about speeds that high, rather useless. lower my bill and give me unlimited without any tricks. work on your heavily congested areas like orlando instead

5G will at least address the congestion issue. As for lower bills, I won't hold my breath lol. This article I thought explained it a little better.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world...far-more-life-changing-than-you-think-1320066