AT&T Communications has confirmed that its new low band 5G service went live in ten markets on 13 December. The new 5G markets have been named as Birmingham, AL; Indianapolis, IN; Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Pittsburgh, PA; Providence, RI; Rochester, NY; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; and San Jose, CA. Subscribers can access the network using the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G handset.
US telecoms news site Fierce Wireless quotes an unnamed AT&T representative as confirming that the new network utilises the 850MHz band, while the cellco’s original 5G network (launched in December 2018) uses 39GHz millimetre wave (mmWave) frequencies. TeleGeography notes that the 850MHz band was previously used for 3G services. AT&T’s 3G networks will be shut down from February 2022 and in March 2019 the telco confirmed that it was in the process of ‘redeploying spectrum currently used for 3G services to support mobile services on our 4G LTE and 5G networks based on market-by-market evaluations’.