AT&T on Tuesday said it is now offering standards-based mobile 5G service in seven additional cities–Austin, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, bringing its presence up to portions of 19 markets. AT&T turned up its initial slate of a dozen markets in December.
The carrier, which launched with a mobile hot spot as its initial device offering, also clarified device plans, saying the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G will be available this spring, and will be followed by at least two more compatible devices throughout the year.
Both Verizon and AT&T are using millimeter wave spectrum for their first cut at commercial 5G services. Verizon launched a fixed wireless service in parts of four markets in October; that was based on its internally-developed 5G Technical Forum standard rather than 3GPP’s 5G New Radio standard. Then AT&T turned up standards-based mobile in December. And, earlier this month, Verizon activated standards-based mobile service in parts of Chicago and Minneapolis with the Motorola moto z3 with a snap-on “mod” as its first compatible smartphone.
While free to select early adopters “for at least 90 days,” according to AT&T, the Nighthawk hot spot costs $499 upfront with a 5G data plan that includes 15 GB of data for $70 per month. The carrier highlighted two customers–a construction firm and an architecture outfit, with the former using the new network to transfer data from sites and the latter for collaboration-type applications.
