After a year-long project, AT&T and Verizon have finally launched a significant part of their much-awaited 5G coverages. This comes after a long process of technical improvements to infrastructure through investments worth billions of dollars.
The specifics of these improvements to the network revolve around wavelengths known as C-band, which will now apply to millions of AT&T and Verizon customers across the United States. The C-band wavelengths are expected to drastically improve service for existing 4G service holders in the respective networks. Specifically, Verizon states that 90 million customers across the country will have access to the new 5G improvements. AT&T claims that 75 million will receive the new coverage.
The process to get everything cleared in this project was not easy for either carrier from both a technical and a legal standpoint. Verizon had to spend $45.5 billion last year simply to gain the rights to use the C-band wavelength as part of a government auction, while AT&T had to dish out $23 billion. In addition to these fees, each carrier also had to spend billions on getting the necessary equipment built on cell towers.
It is worth noting that this 5G rollout is technically not the official debut of 5G technology in general, as both AT&T and Verizon already had a network marketed as 5G available to customers. T-Mobile also has had a similar service available to people since 2020. However, these services were broadcast on different wavelengths and were not as much faster in comparison to the 4G service as the service figures to be with the C-band technology now available.
If you are eligible for this 5G coverage as a customer of one of these carriers, look to see a symbol stating either “5Guw” or “5G+” in the corner of your screen.
