ATT Expands 5G To More Cities, Including New York, Philly and Vegas

Availability exceeds hardware designed to take advantage of it - for now. JL


Chaim Gartenberg reports in The Verge:

ATT’s growing network: New York City, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Detroit, and Philadelphia.The six new cities put ATT’s total number of 5G cities at 19 (and total 5G+ cities at 25), although the carrier only offers a single 5G phone to date: the $1,300 Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G. Still, the addition of major metropolitan areas like New York and Washington, DC are encouraging to see especially as more devices start to feature 5G support in 2020.

AT&T continues to roll out its low-band 5G network, with the addition of six new cities that add some of the biggest urban areas in the US to AT&T’s growing network: New York City, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Detroit, and Philadelphia.

As with the earlier launch in December, the six new cities feature AT&T’s regular 5G network, built on its low-band 850MHz spectrum technology. (Not to be confused with its rebranded LTE network — which AT&T calls 5G E — or its high-band 5G network based on mmWave technology, which AT&T calls 5G+.) In addition to the low-band rollout, AT&T is also launching its mmWave 5G+ network in select areas of Baltimore and Detroit, although the 5G+ network isn’t available to general customers yet.

The six new cities put AT&T’s total number of 5G cities at 19 (and total 5G+ cities at 25), although the carrier only offers a single 5G phone to date: the $1,300 Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G. Still, the addition of major metropolitan areas like New York and Washington, DC are encouraging to see from AT&T, especially as more devices start to feature 5G support in 2020.

Access to AT&T’s 5G network is included at no extra charge with AT&T’s Unlimited Extra or Unlimited Elite plans ($75 or $85 per month for a single line) — although using 5G data will count toward the unlimited plans’ throttling caps (50GB and 100GB of total data usage).