SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The new millimeter-wave network, or what AT&T calls "5G+," will be available in "parts" of New York City, though parts may be a bit of a stretch. In its release, AT&T acknowledges that the service will be in "limited areas initially" with a company spokesperson telling CNET that the new service will be available first in parts "near and around East Village, Greenwich Village and Gramercy Park."
[...] "As a densely-populated, global business and entertainment hub, New York City stands to benefit greatly from having access to 5G, and we've been eager to introduce the service here," said Amy Kramer, president of AT&T's New York region, in a statement. "While our initial availability in NYC is a limited introduction at launch, we're committed to working closely with the City to extend coverage to more neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs."
[...] It is still unclear when AT&T will make 5G available to everyone, but the company plans to deploy a nationwide 5G network on its wider-ranging "sub-6" spectrum in the "first half of 2020."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hwertz on Wednesday August 07 2019, @05:13PM
Effectively, there will be two 5G networks. This is true from all carriers.
One is the mmwave 5G. This uses 28ghz band as well as 24ghz and 26ghz. Carriers have a bare minimum of 100mhz, with 400mhz or more common. This is where you'll get those massive speeds the carriers hype for 5G. But the mmwave band reaches a city block or two. Basically those areas where the carriers have been dumping in microcells already to handle the load, those are the areas that'll have the site density to make mmwave make sense.
The OTHER 5G network, the plan is to use "Dynamic Spectrum Sharing", mostly reusing the same spectrum as 4G; the 5G in these bands is supposed to get about a 15% speed boost (with some saying 30%) over the existing 4G. This is what many many users will be on (I had said "most users", but putting 5G in New York, LA, Chicago alone is enough to maybe not say "most"...). Rural sites, the block or two coverage of mmwave would cover one farmer's household, or if it's on top of a hilll maybe cover part of the hillside and ZERO households. Suburban coverage would be spotty rather than having a nice mmwave coverage area. ON the other hand, 5G on 1900, 1700/2100, 600, 700mhz, etc. should get roughly the same range as 4G, and possibly a little better.