AT&T has announced that it will be bringing 5G to five more cities by the end of 2018, with mobile services to launch in Houston, New Orleans, San Antonio, Jacksonville, and Louisville.
The carrier also announced that it is planning to launch mobile 5G services in parts of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose in early 2019.
The 12 new cities slated to receive 5G from AT&T join the previously announced Dallas, Atlanta, Waco[1], Charlotte, Raleigh, and Oklahoma City[2].
Across its 19 5G deployments, AT&T said it has selected Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung as its vendors.
"Working with these three suppliers, we've already started deploying 3GPP Release 15 compliant equipment in a handful of our early 5G cities," AT&T said.
The carrier will also be kitting out its Foundry innovation centres in Atlanta, Plano, and Palo Alto with 5G connectivity to focus on developing technologies and use cases across 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities, and VR gaming.
"Future smart factories and retailers, self-driving cars, untethered virtual and augmented realities, and other yet to be discovered experiences will grow up on tomorrow's 5G networks," AT&T CTO Andre Fuetsch said on Monday.
AT&T additionally announced details of its ongoing 5G trials in Waco, saying it achieved a global first 5G data transfer to a Qualcomm smartphone form-factor test device with a Snapdragon X50 5G modem and RF subsystem, using millimetre-wave (mmWave) spectrum and Ericsson 5G NR radios.
AT&T is utilising its mmWave spectrum for its 5G networks, and is focused on deploying in high-density areas with greater network demand. In lower-density areas, the carrier said it will deploy 5G across mid- and