AT&T joins the 2018 5G loudest shouting match

T-Mobile US has been bigging up its network and Verizon has promised 5G by H2 after a tie up with Samsung, it wasn’t going to be long before AT&T got involved in the shouting contest.

AT&T has claimed it will be the first US company to deliver a mobile 5G service to the waiting cat enthusiasts in a dozen markets by the end of 2018. The promises which accompany the 5G euphoria are seemingly endless, but from, this statement, it looks like AT&T executives don’t think very highly of their counterparts ability to deliver, or that anyone really needs any information to back up the claims.

“5G will change the way we work, live and enjoy entertainment,” said Melissa Arnboldi, AT&T’s President of Technology and Operations.

“We’re moving quickly to begin deploying of mobile 5G this year and start unlocking the future of connectivity for consumers and businesses. With faster speeds and ultra-low latency, 5G will ultimately deliver and enhance experience like virtual reality, future driverless cars, immersive 4K video and more.”

AT&T claims it has an advantage over its rivals in delivering 5G mobile services, due to its different approach to transforming the network. That said, details on why it has an advantage or what the different approach to transforming the network are relatively thin. AT&T has been making a lot of noise about SDN and virtualization in general, but we’re pretty sure these trends are not being ignored by the rest of the US telco space.

We’re struggling to see anything more than a telco which is shouting to make sure it isn’t the only one which isn’t. We’re sure AT&T is working on delivering 5G ASAP, as will everyone else in the industry, but what evidence there is it will be first is almost non-existent. So here is what we don’t know from this announcement:

AT&T is the last of the major telcos in the US to make a claim over 5G, and it seems like this one was put together in a panic. Just like those people who don’t have a New Years resolution at 11.55pm, AT&T seems to be making nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

Hopefully there will be some substance to the claim, as AT&T marketers have some work to do repairing reputations after a woefully inept attempt to rebrand widely adopted 4G technologies as ‘5G Evolution’…