Though some remain skeptical, 5G is viewed at AT&T as a replacement or substitute for the fixed network.
In fact, the 5G use case Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO is “most excited about is the opportunity to have nearly, a nationwide broadband footprint and it could be a fixed line replacement.”
Of those attributes, it is the nationwide, gigabit everywhere angle that is most strategic. Up to this point, though mobile operators have had nationwide coverage, no provider of fixed network services has been able to reach more than a fraction of U.S. households and business locations.
For the first time, 5G means firms will have the ability to reach most customer locations with gigabit internet access speeds, on networks that will take only a few years to build, not decades. Also, regulatory barriers have prevented any fixed network firm from trying to reach nearly 100 percent coverage of consumer locations.
“The capacity is there, the performance is there, there's going to be full gigabit throughput,” Stephenson says.
As you would expect, given the lack of 5G handsets, fixed or nomadic applications and internet access are going to be the earliest-possible opportunities, as was the case for early 4G.
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