AT&T has received the FCC’s permission (PDF) to conduct a 28 GHz demo that will give gamers at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) an up-close look at how a 5G connection can give them a live gaming experience virtually anywhere there’s network coverage.
In other words, gamers don’t have sit at home to get the kinds of immersive experiences they want thanks to the low latency and ultrafast connections that 5G will provide.
The operator is working with Ericsson, Intel and ESL to perform the demo, according to an AT&T spokesperson. The E3 show takes place June 12-14.
“As the nation’s largest provider of fiber, we know that customers are hungry for these immersive experiences and 5G will allow customers to take these capabilities beyond the home,” the spokesperson said.
The 28 GHz demo will involve up to three fixed base stations and up to three user equipment (UE) units placed within 100 meters of the base station antennas, according to the application. The base station and UE antennas will be placed indoors at a height of less than five meters above the floor in an exhibit hall inside the Los Angeles Convention Center.
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June is a busy month for AT&T and its 5G demos. The operator received permission to conduct another 28 GHz demo at the AT&T SHAPE conference in Burbank in June. It’s also working with Fox Sports, Ericsson and Intel to show streaming video using 28 GHz during the U.S. Open golf tournament in New York June 14-17.
RELATED: AT&T preps for 5G demo at June conference in Los Angeles area
Getting true gigabit throughputs for 5G is going to involve millimeter wave spectrum, and AT&T’s acquisition of FiberTower last year was really important because it got a large, nationwide block of 39 GHz spectrum, AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said during a JPMorgan conference on Tuesday, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.
Getting true gigabit speeds also will require a lot of small cell deployments, and the U.S. government can help there in terms of permitting, licensing and helping get municipalities on board. At the end of the day, the difficult part is deploying hundreds of thousands of small cells, and getting permission municipality by municipality is going to be what takes the most time, he said.