AT&T starts testing its 5G network in the field

5G is coming.

In February of this year, AT&T announced that it was getting ready to push its new generation of networking technology into the wild. This week, the company announced that it has officially begun working with Intel and Ericsson to bring 5G of of the lab and into a realistic testing environment.

The company says they are using millimeter wave technology to power the 5G experience. This technology is said to be up to 40 times faster and reach 4 times as far as current 4G technologies, and AT&T is saying they are able to achieve speeds of over 1 gigabit per second. These are absolutely astronomical speeds, and if brought into the consumer sector, would revolutionize the way we get information. AT&T says that with their new 5G tech, a consumer could download an entire TV episode in as little as 3 seconds.

AT&T says the trial will test multiple use cases for its gigabit internet. They will be using internet access, VPN, Unified Communications applications, and 4K video streams to show just what the network can do, and is hoping to revolutionize talk via new 15 and 28GHz spectrum VoIP.

Unfortunately, the company hasn’t given a time-frame as to when we can expect this technology to hit the market. Verizon is also actively moving towards testing their own 5G network, so at this point it is essentially a race to see who can get there first. One thing is for sure however, whoever does is going to have some serious bragging rights.

Are you excited for this new technology? Being able to access almost any information instantly is something I personally can’t wait for, and it will be an amazing day when we can download an entire TV show in an instant.