In coming months, you’ll be hearing a chorus of boosters singing the praises of 5G mobile technology at an increasingly insistent and noisy level, as they bet many tens of billions of dollars and perhaps the nation’s industrial future. The new ultra-high-speed, high-capacity connections in 5G promise to transform everything from healthcare to TV production and distribution to farming, they say. 

“5G offers tremendous possibilities for consumers across the country, but it’s also an issue of national competitiveness,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a recent Fox Business interview. “5G is going to transform entire industries. We want to make sure America leads in that transformation.” 

We’ll have a better chance to evaluate what 5G means in a few months, when Apple is expected to launch its first 5G-enabled iPhones. Apple is likely to announce details of those new models at its World Wide Developers Conference, June 22-26.

Also read: 5G Is Here — And for Real This Time

Actual arrival of the 5G iPhones, probably somewhat delayed by COVID-19 impacts and economic uncertainties, is now more likely to come sometime between October and December, according to close observers of Cupertino smoke signals.

Whenever those 5G models arrive (5G-enabled Android phones from several companies have been available since last year), the carriers will have spent many months and billions of dollars to optimize their networks for an expected influx of new customers. Given that, expect heavy promotion of 5G’s potential as the carrier contenders try to surf Apple’s monstrous marketing wake.

Eighteen Times Faster Than 4G?

So what exactly will they be promoting? Most simply, 5G is the next generation, the fifth, in mobile phone technologies. Depending on a particular carrier and where you’re accessing it, 5G  offers dramatically higher speeds, extremely low latency, and/or wide coverage for more  sparsely populated areas.

Just don’t confuse it with the 5-gigahertz band of on your home WiFi network. That’s a different beast, the 5G shorthand appended to your network’s name to connote which frequency, or slice of spectrum, is connecting the internet signal on the router in the corner the computer on your kitchen table. 

To further clarify 5G’s technical complexities, we can actually use of that same WiFi router as illustration. Routers these days use a 2.4-gigahertz frequency band and one or two 5-gigahertz frequency bands as options to transmit the same WiFi channel. One frequency (5-Ghz) is faster, while the other is better at penetrating walls and carrying more data. 

In much the same way, 5G mobile uses multiple swathes of spectrum, generally designated as high-, mid- and low-band. Which bands a given carrier’s network uses will vary from city to city, and urban to rural settings. 

The fastest band is so-called millimeter-wave, great for densely populated urban areas but requiring an equally dense array of refrigerator-sized cell transmitters because its signal doesn’t go very far, and often is stymied by walls and solid objects. Low-band, as with the 2.4Ghz WiFi signal, does a better job reaching much further, and through more obstacles. Mid-band strikes a balance, and is useful for more suburban settings. 

The speed and capacity you might access on a 5G network, especially here in the early days, can vary widely. All the big carriers and their would-be challengers have been spending vast sums to install the neighborhood transmitters and other equipment in cities across the country.

Already, the fastest installed 5G networks are as much as 18 times faster than the 4G equivalents provided by the same carriers, according to recent studies.

Those multiples are only possible where users have access to the millimeter band services that Verizon is emphasizing. They can hit 2 gigabit-per-second speeds (compared to 4G speeds that typically max out around 14 to 18 Mbps) but have very short reach and don’t penetrate building walls and other obstacles very well. 

And as 5G becomes more universally available, and networks more fully built out, it should be transformative. 

For its part, Pai’s FCC has focused on three key initiatives under its so-called FAST plan: a) make more spectrum available; b) speed up approvals to build more transmitters and other local architecture; and c) make it easier to lay the back-end fiber-optic cables that will connect all that traffic to the internet. 

The agency also set aside $9 billion to finance 5G build-outs in rural areas that “never would have a business case for laying wireless,” Pai said. Depending on the topography and other factors, 5G could bring broadband to long-neglected rural areas, not only improving consumer access there, but boosting the productivity of farms and ranches trying to manage their far-flung crops, crews and machinery. 

Many other sectors are headed to a 5G-fueled reboot, too. 

Pai points to telemedicine, vital amid the COVID-19 lockdown, but potentially transformative even in more normal times, with services like remote monitoring of diabetics’ blood-sugar levels, stroke-symptom tracking and long-distance robotic surgery. 

5G will bring the speed, capacity and latency needed to build out important, but nascent sectors such as autonomous vehicles and the so-called Internet of Things, which promises fleets of net-connected smart devices in every home and workplace, communicating wirelessly with each other, with you, and with the rest of the internet. 

Various corners of entertainment and media are ripe for 5G, too, beginning with mobile gaming and virtual and augmented reality. 5G will give mobile users access to richer, higher-resolution and more complicated experiences wherever they are. 

It even has huge implications for more traditional entertainment. 

For one thing, 5G promises to further upend already struggling traditional pay-TV, which pipes high-quality video into the home by way of co-axial cable attached to a headend or satellite dish. So-called fixed-wireless will bring 5G mobile to all the devices in a consumer household without WiFi’s bandwidth limits or cable TV’s wires and restrictions. 

Satellite TV provider Dish Network is trying to avoid that disintermediation, remaking itself into a fourth wireless carrier. That process is very much still in transition, however. Two pending deals with T-Mobile remain unsettled, awaiting Department of Justice decisions. But expect, eventually, that Dish will acquire Boost Mobile for around $1.4 billion, launch an initially slow 5G network virtually on other companies’ backbone services, and then build out its own 5G network within  three years.  

Cable giants Comcast and Charter Communications are among those trying to create their own attractive alternative to 5G, bundling virtual mobile (MVNO) services on top of their pay-TV and broadband offerings, while enhancing their hardwired networks to become what they’re marketing as “10G,” as in twice as fast as 5G. Whether consumers will bite on the marketing speak will be another big question to resolve in coming months. 

Also read: Cable Industry Set to Plug ’10G’ at CES

Broadcasters around the world also see 5G as a significant addition to their production toolkit, including replacing some satellite video transport, handling live or remote video production, and as cost-effective backup for contribution links, according to a new Nevlon survey of broadcasters in North America and three other continents.

Some 92% of the 225 broadcasters said they plan to adopt 5G within two years, a remarkable uptake plan that suggests its huge potential. 

Most survey participants also said they believe their country’s 5G infrastructure will be able to handle the demands of video production. About two-thirds expect to use the technology for remote production. 

“It’s positive that broadcasters are expecting to move forward at pace with 5G,” said Nevlon chief technologist Andy Rayner. ”However, there is still a lot of work to be done before it can be implemented into live environments, and given the current climate worldwide, testing and developments may have slowed down. Over the next year or so, it will be a case of broadcasters looking in earnest at the potential of 5G in the value chain and testing the technology’s capabilities within their organizations.” 

As for the Big Three wireless carriers, 5G promises to shove them ever more centrally into everything we do. 

They’re going about it with differing strategies, and all three have had other distractions and initiatives. But make no mistake, all are counting heavily on 5G as the foundation of their future.

AT&T

As for distractions, AT&T has had an expensive one: buying Time Warner Media for $85 billion in 2018, restructuring it into WarnerMedia, and then launching the priciest subscription streaming-video service yet, the confusingly named HBO Max. 

But HBO Max arrived in May at a propitious time for the company. AT&T’s legacy pay TV systems—DirecTV and U-verse—have been hemorrhaging subscribers. And the IP-based platform intended to replace them, AT&T TV, has so far been coolly received.

Also read: AT&T TV: Everything You Need to Know About the Streaming Version of AT&T’s Premium Pay TV Service

AT&T still has some work to do on HBO Max, including cutting distribution deals with device platforms Roku and Amazon Fire TV, which together reach 80 million U.S. households, and launching a promised free, ad-supported tier. 

But now it has an attractive chip to throw in when trying to sign up and keep 5G customers. As more consumers understand the advantages of 5G and the many offerings on HBO Max, that could pay off handsomely. 

In late June, AT&T announced the addition of 28 5G city deployments, including Dallas, Miami and Salt Lake City, bringing its total U.S. deployment to 355 cities. 

The Anti-AT&T

Verizon’s approach, by contrast, is the anti-AT&T, choosing to focus almost exclusively on building out the fastest network available right now. 

Verizon shifted focus in 2019, when it named former Nokia chief executive Hans Vestberg as its CEO. He has de-emphasized previous CEO Lowell McAdam’s numerous content initiatives and acquisitions (Yahoo, AOL, Tumblr, Go90/Vessel, Huffington Post) in favor of more network buildouts.

Verizon, which for years marketed its 4G network’s strong reputation, may be positioned to do the same thing here in 5G’s early days. It will leverage two Qualcomm technologies that optimize networks—Carrier Aggregation and Digital Spectrum Spreading (DSS)—to grab the speed lead just as the iPhone 5G arrives.   

A report in late May from mobile analytics company OpenSignal looked at 5G networks from 10 companies in four countries, and tabbed Verizon as the fastest, by a lot. A company spokesman said “speed and performance…become even more important as many consumer and industries will have to rethink how they operate post-COVID.” 

The company already has 5G networks in 35 U.S. cities as of late May, Vestberg told CNBC’s Jim Cramer, and it accelerated capital spending when the pandemic sent telecom demand skyrocketing.

“We’re building 5G right,” Vestberg said. “We want to have a superior experience on 5G, and it’s not only the consumer who gets this experience. Industry and government are going to have to have it to transform their businesses. It’s 10, 15, 20 times faster than we have on 4G.”

In the middle of the lockdown, Verizon also snapped up video-conferencing company Blue Jeans for $500 million. The acquisition dovetailed nicely into its broader 5G strategy around services such as telemedicine and online learning, which could be huge opportunities, even if COVID-19 concerns ease. 

“You’re going to see improvements over time, then dramatic improvements,” Vestberg said. “We are accelerating our investment levels right now because it’s even more important to have these connections now.”

Layer Cake

T-Mobile grabbed industry bragging rights earlier this month when a deal with an Alaskan provider allowed it to say it was the first U.S. carrier to have 5G networks in all 50 states. 

More broadly, T-Mobile is taking what it’s calling a “layer cake” approach that matches its basket of owned or controlled spectrum with the needs of different regions. 

Deutsche Telekom’s U.S. subsidiary has been ramping up its 5G capabilities amid its own remarkable corporate makeover.

Also read: Bigger ‘Uncarrier’ Looks to Become a Force in Streaming

Earlier this year, T-Mobile finally completed most of its long-sought Sprint merger to become the second-largest carrier. That brought it a trove of high-band 5G spectrum but also a lot of work to integrate it into its own systems. It’s also still in mid-deal with Dish, which when consummated will give it access to the latter’s portfolio of 600-Mhz bandwidth, while unloading pre-paid provider Boost Mobile. T-Mobile also just signed a spectrum lease with Columbia Capital for another swathe of 600-Mhz spectrum.

Walter Piecyk, an analyst for LightShed Partners, calls the lower-frequency bandwidth a “bridge” to T-Mobile’s even faster 5G future, allowing it to moderately speed up its network now while it cleans up that Sprint 2.5-Ghz high-band. 

“It will take a few years to clean up and deploy the more dramatic 5G capabilities that 2.5 GHz spectrum enables,” Pieczyk wrote. By then, T-Mobile could be the speed leader among the big carriers. 

In the meantime, T-Mobile and its competitors are doing what they can to roll out fast, widely available 5G networks now, before the iPhone 5G arrives.

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said this week that the No. 1 U.S. wireless operator will nearly double its number of “millimeter wave” cities from a current count of 31 to 60 this year. 

Speaking to investors Thursday, in an event covered by Fortune, Vestberg also said Verizon will double its number of fixed 5G cities from five to 10. 

"We have the opportunity to continue our journey to be the leader on 5G," Vestberg said "We're not only expanding markets, we're also expanding coverage in all the markets."

Millimeter-wave spectrum is made up of ultra-high frequency radio waves in the 24 Gigahertz to 100 GHz range, which can hold and deliver gobs more data. Early 5G networks using millimeter-wave technology promise speeds as high as 6 Gigabits per second, evolving one day to as high as 20 Gbps. Latency is also vastly improved, too, going from 20-70 milliseconds with 4G to as low as the ultra-responsive sub-1 millisecond range.

Establishing ubiquitous 5G coverage is no small engineering feat. The ultra-high frequencies require signals to broadcast at very short range — around 600 to 800 feet — meaning Verizon must festoon every street in each city where it deploys 5G with gobs of “small cell” devices. These short-throw, ultra-high frequencies are also prone to all sorts of interference, falling leaves included. And they don’t penetrate walls or buildings.

Also read: 5G Is Here — And for Real This Time

It’s for this reason that T-Mobile, in its aggressive bid for ubiquitous nationwide 5G coverage, is using lower frequencies for its 5G rollout, even though the offering delivers far less speed. 

Vestberg touted a Verizon plan called dynamic spectrum sharing, which will allow the operator to mix lower and higher spectrums, delivered on the same cellular tower, and have customers seamlessly transition between them. 

"This year we will launch nationwide 5G based on dynamic spectrum sharing," he said. "We're going to launch that when we think it's commercially right, when we see enough handsets out in the market.”

Verizon is charging subscribers to its base unlimited plan an additional $10 a month if they want to tap into 5G. It has it will also charge that fee soon to subscribers of higher end service plans. 

To use Verizon’s 5G services, customers have a choice of investing in only two pricey handset offerings right now, each tagged at over $1,000. But Verizon said its 5G phone selection will soon expand to around 20 models, some priced as low as $600.

This week, Charter Communications, which has a wholesale agreement to use the Verizon network for its Spectrum Mobile service, said it will sell 5G phones made by Samsung. 

CommScope said it will add support for sub 6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G New Radio (NR) to its NVG558 fixed wireless gateway.

The NVG558 FWA Gateway platform provides operators the flexibility to deliver 5G NR over sub-6 GHz today and takes advantage of mmWave deployments as they become more widespread. The device has existing support for 4G LTE and 3.5 GHz CBRS connectivity.

The sub-6 GHz 5G NR version of the NVG558 will begin sampling for select customers in Q1 2020. The mmWave 5G NR version will begin sampling in Q3 2020.

“As operators build out their 5G networks, many want to maximize the value of these networks by using them to offer fixed wireless broadband services to customers,” said Joe Chow, senior VP and segment leader, customer premises equipment at CommScope. “The new version of the NVG558 offers these operators a flexible platform for delivering customers smarthome devices, video streaming, gaming, virtual reality, augmented reality,

Millimeter wave spectrum is made up of ultra-high frequency radio waves in the 24GHz to 100GHz range, which can hold and deliver gobs more data. Early 5G networks using millimeter wave tech promise speeds as high as 6 Gbps, evolving one day to as high as 20 Gbps. Latency is also vastly improved, too, going from 20-70 milliseconds with 4G to as low as the ultra-responsive sub 1 millisecond range.

But as Verizon—the most aggressive proponent of millimeter wave today—is finding out, establishing ubiquitous coverage with it is no small engineering feat. The ultra-high frequencies require very short-range broadcast of signals—around 600 to 800 feet—meaning that Verizon has to festoon every street in every city it deploys 5G in with gobs of “small cell” devices. These short-throw, ultra-high frequencies are also prone to all sorts of interference, falling leaves included, and they don’t penetrate walls or buildings.

Midcontinent Communications (Midco) wants to use fixed wireless to deliver broadband to remote portions of its rural footprint. And it’s currently testing residential fixed wireless speeds of 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstreaming using its 3.65 GHZ nationwide nonexclusive and 3.5 GHz CBRS band spectrum licenses.

“Midco’s fixed wireless innovation extends to the millimeter wave, where we are beginning testing,” said Justin Forde, Midco’s senior director of government relations, testifying Friday during a hearing on 5G conducted by Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation chair John Thune (R-S.D.). A transcripts of Forde’s testimony is available here.

Midco is among a number of telecom companies, Comcast and Charter included, looking at delivering services through high-band frequencies committed to the Citizens Band Radio Service. 

“Using shorter distances from towers to consumers, we can use the 70 and 80 GHz bands for our point-to-point connections and the 50 and 60 GHz bands for our point-to-multipoint connections,” Forde added. “A new meshing technology will increase redundancy and reliability, and we will be testing Gigabit fixed wireless services. Millimeter wave technology can be an additional tool in the toolbox to offer high-speed and reliable broadband to rural America.”

Related: CBRS Alliance Declares Interop a Success, Says Commercial Deployments are ‘Imminent’

Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Midco serves more than 400,000 residential and business customers count on Midco services in 342 communities in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, and Wisconsin.

Forde rendered his testimony as the FCC, which was also present at Friday’s hearings, looks to change the way it allocates spectrum for so-called “5G” services, the name which larger wireless carriers are using to market their new fixed wireless offerings.

“It would be detrimental to rural America if valuable and limited spectrum was allocated only to 5G, especially as 5G requires a high concentration of small cells to operate,” Forde said. “Using current mobile 5G technology, it would take an estimated 350 small cell towers to provide 5G to Sioux Falls, with a square footage of only 74 miles. While technology that requires end users to be in such close proximity to a tower is a possibility in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and other urban areas, mobile 5G it is not currently a realistic solution to close the Digital Divide in rural areas.

“On behalf of our friends and neighbors who still lack access to broadband, we ask that Congress and the FCC allow fixed wireless providers like Midco to have equal access to spectrum as that valuable resource is freed up for commercial use,” Forde added. "We know from field testing that the 3.5 GHz band is key spectrum for us to provide speeds of 100/20 and higher to homes that are over 8 miles away from the tower.

The FCC is currently changing the rules for the 3.5 GHz band. Under those rules, Forde said, “After 2020, we will lose our interference protection in the 3.65 GHz band, and we will then need to either use general authorized access spectrum, in which case our operations would not be entitled to interference protection, or bid on priority access licenses in the 3550-3650 MHz range that will be auctioned. Moreover, only 70 MHz of spectrum will be auctioned, and there is no guarantee Midco will be able to gain access to that spectrum.”

Cox Communications is the only major U.S. cable operator to enter into the FCC’s first auction of spectrum devoted to next-generation 5G services.

The privately held, Atlanta-based cable operator, the third-biggest U.S. MSO, is bidding for licenses in the 28 Gigahertz auction, set for Nov. 14, along with Dish Network, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Windstream and other telecom companies.

Dish, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Windstream and Frontier Communications are among the companies bidding for 28 GHz licenses in the FCC’s so-called “millimeter-wave” auction.

Notably absent are Comcast, Charter Communications and Altice USA, which have all expressed interest in participating in telecom’s ongoing wireless convergence in some form or another.

(Lists of the auction filers can be found here.)

Related: FCC Votes to Put More Broadband Spectrum in Play

The FCC is conducting its first-ever auction of high-frequency airwaves suitable for next-generation 5G wireless services. The airwaves being auctioned exist mostly in rural areas, with the largest available market being Honolulu, according to Morgan Stanley. The auction covers about a quarter of the U.S. airwaves. 

Comcast and Charter are mostly situated in metropolitan and suburban markets, although Altice has footprint in rural regions through its Suddenlink Communications purchase.

In a May FCC filing, Charter asked the FCC to wait to open the application window for the 24-GHz band auction until the 28 GHz auction was completed.  Charter reasoned that those companies that satisfied their spectrum needs in the 28 GHz auction (aka Auction 101) might want to demure on the 24 GHz auction (Auction 102).

But the No. 2 U.S. operator seemed to indicate that it would participate in the bidding.

“Charter is particularly excited about the opportunities presented with this high-band spectrum and is exploring how to use it to deliver ultra-fast, high-capacity services to consumers in communities across the country — large and small, as well as urban, suburban and rural,” the operator said in its filing.

However, Charter and Comcast have seemed more focused on the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service band (CBRS), as well as the 3.7-4.2 GHz band, also known as the lower C-band.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress Americas event in Los Angeles last month, Charter senior vice president of wireless technology Craig Cowden said, “I do think millimeter wave has some propagation issues that will limit its effectiveness in terms of a true mobility layer.”

Calling it the largest civil penalty every paid to the U.S. Treasury to resolve an FCC investigation, the FCC announced that Straight Path Communication and Verizon Communications have paid about $614 million to settle a spectrum-related investigation.

The announcement came just hours after Verizon, after outbidding AT&T, closed its acquisition of Straight Path, a deal that gives Verizon access to 39-GHz and 28-GHz millimeter wave spectrum that will be used for coming 5G networks.

RELATED: Verizon Outbids AT&T for Straight Path

The probe stems from a January 2017 settlement that Straight Path stuck with the FCC's Enforcement Bureau -- prior to its sale and transfer of licenses to Verizon -- over claims that Straight Path violated the FCC’s buildout and discountenance rules related to about 1,000 licenses in the millimeter weave spectrum bands.

The settlement, the FCC added, required Straight Path to sell its licenses and remit 20% of the overall proceeds of the transaction to the U.S. Treasury. 

Verizon and Straight Path inked a deal on May 11, 2017, to transfer the licenses, and on Jan. 18 the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau approved the transfer, the agency said.

Under the deal, Verizon agreed to acquire Straight Path for $184 per share, an all-stock deal that represents an enterprise value of about $3.1 billion.

The $614 million is in addition to the $15 million that Straight Path previously paid to the U.S. Treasury, and its earlier relinquishment of 196, or 20%, of its licenses to the FCC that were not included in the Verizon deal.

Starry, the startup that has developed a competitive broadband service that uses millimeter wave technologies, said it has launched a beta version of its 200 Mbps offering in parts of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Those launches expand on Starry’s earlier beta service debut in the Boston area.

Update: Starry said service is available in "select areas" of Washington, D.C, and Los Angeles, but expects to expand there similar to how it has broadened its rollout in Boston, which started as a closed beta and is now passing more than 240,000 homes. 

Starry said it expects to launch service in more than a dozen new markets in 2018. Markets launches on deck for this year include New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami and Minneapolis, the company said.

RELATED: Starry’s Service Starts at $50 Per Month

Starry’s service is based on pre-standard 5G technology that uses a point-to-multipoint fixed wireless platform to deliver broadband in millimeter wave spectrum.

Starry holds that its platform can support gigabit-class speeds, though its initial offering delivers symmetrical speeds of 200 Mbps. Starry is selling that service, which is free of contracts and data caps, for $50 per month, and includes the Starry Station, a touchscreen WiFi hub.

Starry’s architecture includes the Starry Beam (a network node) that delivers connectivity to an on-premises transceiver called the Starry Point that works in conjunction with the in-home Starry Station. Starry also touted that its service includes 24/7 customer care.

RELATED: Starry Eyes Wireless Broadband Alternative

“When we founded Starry, we set out to be different. We knew we could develop and build a new and innovative broadband network, but we also wanted to deliver on a superior customer experience,” Chet Kanojia, Starry’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “We take the privilege of being in your home and being your family’s ISP very seriously. From the way our customer care and installation team interacts with you, to our pledge to never throttle, block, or pick and choose what content you access, when we pledged to build a better internet, we meant it.”

In addition to grappling with traditional wired broadband providers, Starry will also be contending with major carriers, including Verizon Communications and AT&T, that are also preparing to launch 5G-based fixed wireless broadband service.

RELATED: Samsung Gets a Piece of Verizon’s 5G Action

According to a recent analysis by MoffettNathanson, Starry’s best shot at disrupting the broadband sector will be by pairing deployments in high-density areas with a low-cost technology platform.

RELATED: Low Costs, Dense Markets Critical to Starry’s Success: Analyst

The FCC under both the current chairman, Ajit Pai, and former chairman, Tom Wheeler, has been working to open up more spectrum above 24 GHZ--and elsewhere--to promote competitive, next gen, broadband services.

RELATED: Kanojia Gave FCC's Wheeler Heads up About Starry

The FCC in November took another step to promote high-frequency spectrum innovative new by voting to make an additional 1,700 MHz of millimeter wave spectrum available for 5G and declining to cap the amount of spectrum in the 24 GHz and 47 GHz bands a bidder can buy at auction.

Higher-speed wireless broadband services also work toward Pai's regulatory theory that wireless is providing competitive broadband speeds and can be considered a competitive option. That theory of choice is key to his net neutrality rule rollback proposal, which presumes that competition allows for different business models from which to choose.

In the wake of the ISP reg rollback, Starry pledged not to prioritize, block, cap or throttle content.

--John Eggerton contributed to this story

AT&T has pushed ahead with a trial of Project AirGig, a patented powerline-assisted technology that eyes speeds of more than 1 Gbps, in Georgia.

The trial, with Georgia Power/Southern Company in a rural part of the state, follows an earlier international pilot.

AT&T sees Project AirGig as a low-cost option for urban, rural and underserved parts of the globe via millimeter wave signals that are “guided” by power lines and work in tandem with wireless antennas made of plastic that are connected to the power grid.

In its earlier work around this approach, AT&T said it’s been working on ways to deliver a modulated radio signal around or near medium-voltage power lines, as a last-mile access alternative that could be configured with small cells or distributed antenna systems.

In addition to raw internet access for smartphones and tablets and other devices, AT&T sees other potential applications for AirGig, including self-driving cars and augmented reality.

RELATED: AT&T’s ‘Project AirGig’ Has Global Aspirations

AT&T is hopeful that the approach will reduce or eliminate the need to build new towers or bury new cables in locations close to aerial power lines.

“Instead, using AirGig patented technology, we would install devices to provide high speed broadband which can be clamped on by trained electrical workers in just a few minutes,” AT&T noted.

“If these trials and our continued research and development turn out the way we intend, we’ll take a big step toward bringing hyper-fast connectivity to people everywhere,” Andre Fuetsch, president of AT&T Labs, said in a statement.

This video presents a bit more detail about the technology and the initiative:

AT&T said it plans to expand its fixed wireless 5G trials to three additional markets by the end of the year -- Waco, Texas; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and South Bend, Ind.

That plan followed AT&T’s launch of a second 5G trial in Austin in June that involved local businesses, including a car wash and a church, as well as an apartment unit, which is using the technology to deliver high-bandwidth services such as DirecTV Now (AT&T’s OTT TV service), 360-degree video and international videoconferencing.

RELATED: AT&T Kicks Off 5G-Powered DirecTV Now Trial

In the Austin trial, which is utilizing millimeter wave spectrum, AT&T said it’s seeing speeds up to 1 Gbps and latency rates “well under 10 milliseconds,” AT&T said, noting that it’s continuing to conduct outdoor pre-standard mobile 5G tests.

RELATED: Low Costs, Dense Markets Critical to Starry’s Success: Analyst

AT&T, which is also trialing the technology in Indianapolis, said it’s hopeful that the 5G trials will accelerate standards-based deployments by as early as late 2018.

RELATED: Verizon Exec: ‘Meaningful’ 5G Deployments to Start in 2018

“In Austin, we see all types of weather and substantial foliage,” Marachel Knight, AT&T’s senior vice president, Wireless Network Architecture and Design, said in a statement. “Taking our fixed wireless 5G trials out of the lab and into the real world helps us learn important factors about mmWave and 5G. And in doing so, we’re learning how to better design our network for the future.”

Tech partners in the trials include Ericsson (28GHz radios, virtualized RAN and a 5G virtualized core), chipmaker Intel Corp., Samsung (virtualized core, vRAN, and 5G home routers), and Nokia.

Starry, the startup that has developed a competitive broadband service that uses millimeter wave technology, confirmed that a beta version of the service is available to parts of Boston for $50 per month and delivers symmetrical speed of 200 Mbps.

Starry’s Boston-area beta offering, spotted by Light Reading, is being sold without a contract or extra equipment rental fees, and includes a customer care service that will help customers connect devices and troubleshoot WiFi or other issues.

RELATED: Starry Eyes Wireless Broadband Alternative

According to a Starry official, the company is currently focused on the multiple-dwelling unit (MDU) market in Boston, noting that the company has developed versions of the Starry Point, the unit that receives the signal and communications with the Starry Station WiFi hub, that can handle a range of use cases, including large and small MDUs as well as for single-family units.

In the MDU scenarios, Starry is leaning primarily on existing, in-building wiring to connect the Starry Station, though there are some cases in which Starry will do its own wiring, the official noted.

Interested customers can query the Starry site to see if service is available to them. Starry is currently available in parts of Charlestown, Somerville and Cambridge and a handful of other neighborhoods in the Boston area.

“We’re bringing additional neighborhoods online in the next few weeks,” the official said via email, noting that Starry recently made the beta service more widely available.

Comcast, RCN and Verizon are among the incumbent broadband providers Starry will likely tangle with in Boston.

Starry is helmed by former Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia.

RELATED: Aereo Auction Raises Less Than $2 Million

According to a recent analysis by MoffettNathanson, Starry’s best shot at disrupting the broadband sector will be by pairing deployments in high-density areas with a low-cost technology platform.

RELATED: Low Costs, Dense Markets Critical to Starry’s Success: Analyst

“On paper, at least, fixed wireless has the potential to be the first low-cost alternative to wired broadband,” the firm explained, noting that AT&T and Verizon are already moving in that direction with 5G-focused trials. Google Fiber is also pursuing wireless as a lower-cost alternative.

RELATED: Google Fiber's Webpass Debuts in Denver 

Starry, the wireless broadband startup led by former Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia, has raised a $30 million “B” round that brings its total funding to $63 million, the company confirmed. 

RELATED: Starry Eyes Wireless Broadband Alternative

The startup disclosed a $30 million raise in this SEC filing dated Dec. 16. In January, Starry announced backers that included FirstMark Capital, Tiger Global, IAC, KKR, HLVP and Quantum Strategic Partners, but did not say how much funding it had raised at the time.

Kanojia, who tried to disrupt the pay TV industry with Aereo, which went bankrupt and lost its case against several major broadcasters, is now turning his eyes toward broadband with a wireless broadband service that’s aiming to deliver speeds up to 1-Gig using millimeter wave technology. Starry's service will not be saddled with data caps.  

RELATED: Supremes Rule Against Aereo

Starry also confirmed that it is conducting a closed beta in Boston, with plans to expand that toward the end of Q1 2017. That expansion and deployment in Boston is expected to continue for the next several months in anticipation of deployments outside of Boston in a handful of cities by the end of 2017. 

RELATED: Kanojia Gave FCC's Wheeler Heads up About Starry

Ahead of a commercial debut, Starry is selling a WiFi router with a 3.8-inch touchscreen for $249.99, already reduced from an originally announced retail price of $349.99. Per the Starry site, the device is available directly through the company or via outlets such as Amazon, Best Buy and B&H.

AT&T is exploring the delivery of broadband services outside its wireline footprint by testing point-to-point millimeter wave wireless technology to deliver 100 Mbps speeds to select apartment complexes in Minneapolis.

The platform being tested extends connections from a fiber-connected property to neighboring properties using small radio/antenna systems placed on the properties' rooftops. Once a neighboring building receives the multi-gigabit millimeter wave wireless signal, AT&T converts it to high-speed wired Internet connection that rides on existing or new wiring in the property to each unit.

AT&T said it is also eying faster speeds in these trial properties, perhaps up to 500 Mbps. AT&T is also considering rollouts in parts of Boston,  Denver, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Notably, residents in the trial properties can also get DirecTV service using an “Advantage” platform that relies on a single satellite dish on the building to send a video signal to a centralized distribution system without having to install dishes on individual unit balconies.

"We're trialing the latest innovations in wireless and wired network technologies. This will make it possible for us to potentially deliver an internet connection to more locations where we have not previously been able to offer a home internet connection," Ed Balcerzak, senior vice president, Commercial and Connected Communities at AT&T, said in a statement. "If successful, this will give us the ability to offer a combination of internet, DirecTV and wireless services to apartment complexes and multifamily communities in additional metro areas."

Senate Commerce Committee chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said that, in concert with ranking member Bill Nelson (R-Fla.), he is putting the finishing touches on his bill to boost development of 5G wireless broadband service at potentially multiple-gigabit speeds, in competition to cable broadband.

Speaking at a CTIA 5G conference in Washington Tuesday (Feb. 9), Thune said he has been working on a new draft of the Mobile Now (Making Opportunities for Broadband Investment and Limiting Excessive and Needless Obstacles to Wireless) Act, which he hoped to be able to introduce later this week.

The bill has been in the works for a while, but was pulled from a planned markup last fall.

He said the bill would "insure that hundreds of megahertz of spectrum would be made available for commercial use by 2020," which he pointed out was about the same time the 5G standard could be rolled out. He said the bill would "cut through much of the bureaucratic red tape that makes it difficult to build wireless facilities on federal properties." It would also "direct the FCC to streamline regulations affecting small-cell networks."

Thune said that perhaps most importantly, the bill would push the FCC to examine millimeter wave (high-frequency bands) to determine which are most useful for 5 G. He said those would be the most critical for delivering the multi-gigabit high speed broadband service.

He pointed out that Starry is already planning millimeter wave, high-speed wireless broadband service using current gen technology.

Thune talked loftily about the possibilities of high-speed wireless broadband, saying that to him, 5G did not mean as-yet unwritten tech specs, but a not too distant future in which "unbridled activity meets nearly unbounded capacity unlocking limitless possibility."

He suggested the FCC should clear away regulatory obstacles rather than regulate as though wireless were not a growing competitor to wired cable.

But Thune said the days of easy spectrum are over, and that Congress was going to have to do some heavy lifting going forward rather than picking bands of underutilized spectrum and auctioning them for tens of billions of dollars.

He said he could not exaggerate how much more difficult it will be to identify new bands of spectrum for broadband.

Thune said the bill would build on last year’s Spectrum Pipeline Act and that while 5G may be years away, incremental steps toward it must be taken now.

Thune said there is work in the House on a wireless spectrum bill and they should be able to combine those efforts.