AT&T begins testing 5G: 10 to 100 times faster than LTE

When Pepephone last year changed coverage from Vodafone to Movistar, it was giving its customers the possibility of using 4G or LTE. At first I did not notice the difference, because in my area there was no coverage, but the first time I approached a city that did have it, I couldn't believe it: my iPhone 6 got more speed on the street than the one I had at home with fiber optics, about + 50mb / + 25mb. I had never dreamed of those speeds in the days of 3G, but AT&T does not want to stop there and will soon start testing 5G.

AT&T has not wanted to specify what speeds we would achieve with the next connection, but it has advanced that it will be 10 to 100 times higher than LTE / 4G, which translates into a maximum speed of approximately some 299600Mbits / s download and about 75400Mbits / s upload. I think that will be more than enough to upload photos to Instagram and send a few WhatsApps a day, don't you think?

AT&T says 5G will be able to download at 299600Mbits / s

In any case, we will still have to wait several years to be able to test this new connection, especially in countries like Spain. AT&T wants to bring 5G to cities like Austin before the end of 2016 and its 5G infrastructure will not reach much of the territory in which the company operates until around 2020. Verizon will also begin testing 5G solutions in 2016.

AT & G's 5G network will be based on technologies such as millimeter waves, network function virtualization (NFV), and software-defined networks (SDN). The operator has already migrated 14 million wireless clients to its virtualized network and says several million more will migrate this year. In the next four years, AT&T wants to virtualize 75% of its network.

I know that right now there are not a few users who are thinking «we have to wait«. But for what? If I have to be honest, I don't think we have to go crazy about this issue, at least as the web is now. By this I mean that if we have a 1GB data plan and, at best, we are going to watch videos on YouTube or listen to music on streaming, with LTE we are covered. What's more, I think that with a 3G in good condition we are also covered in most cases. 5G has to come with new rates that allow us to use it without worries. In any case, most of us will still have to wait years to be able to talk about 5G in our area.