AT&T Launches Mobile 5G in 12 Markets

AT&T flipped the switch on its mobile 5G network in a dozen markets offering up the first competitive response to rival Verizon, which turned on its 5G Home network in October. The AT&T launch also has the carrier sliding in under its self-imposed deadline to launch its standards-based mobile 5G service by year-end. The AT&T 5G network itself is officially live in those initial launch markets. The carrier said that select “businesses and consumers” in those markets will be able to tap into that network beginning Dec. 21. Those initial markets include Atlanta; Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina; Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Waco, Texas; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Florida; Louisville, Kentucky; Oklahoma City; and New Orleans. The carrier will expand coverage to seven additional markets during the first half of next year. Those markets include Las Vegas; Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose, California; Nashville; and Orlando, Florida. Analysts noted that the launch was significant for the 5G ecosystem.“This is big,” said Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics, of the AT&T launch. “This is real, standards-based 5G with a real 5G device. It’s the first, and it’s the first that matters because it’s the first using a standards-based 5G network.”