AT&T has turned on commercial mobile 5G service in parts of seven more cities, after first launching in select areas of 12 markets late last year.
The latest additions include Austin, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose.
Just last week, Verizon officially turned on its mobile 5G service in parts of Minneapolis and Chicago.
Customers need to use a Motorola moto z3 with a clip-on 5G moto mod attachment in order to access Verizon’s millimeter waver 5G service, which the carrier said should deliver average download speeds of 450 Mbps.
AT&T currently offers 5G service on a Netgear 5G mobile hotspot, but plans to offer a true 5G smartphone this spring, with the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G handset. AT&T expects to offer a second Samsung smartphone later this year that will be capable of supporting both mmWave and sub-6 GHz spectrum.
While 5G coverage is limited to small pockets at this point, AT&T said it expects to provide high speeds via mmWave spectrum, as well as nationwide coverage over sub-6GHz spectrum by early 2020.
HCS General Contractor is one of AT&T’s early business customers using the 5G service and hotspot since late December. In a news release, Mike Ballerino, Director of Construction at HCS indicated the company is using two 5G mobile hotspots to transfer large amounts of data smoothly while out at a construction site “without bogging down” the process.
