AT&T Brags That Its 'Real' 5G Wireless Service Breaks 1 Gbps Speed Barrier

AT&T has been in hot water with some customers and its competition over its fake 5G E branding for its mobile network. Sprint filed a lawsuit against AT&T over the misleading branding and later blasted the branding in an open letter. AT&T's CEO responded to the backlash essentially telling everyone to "deal with it." Reports showed that the AT&T 5G E network was actually slower in many places than the competition's LTE networks. AT&T is now bragging that it has surpassed the 1 Gbps speed threshold on its "true" 5G network.

The carrier says that it "reached this milestone" on its live 5G network in multiple cities using the Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot. AT&T notes that at the speeds it achieved on its network with the Netgear hardware, you could download a 2-hour HD movie in 20 seconds.

There are, however, some caveats to this announcement from AT&T. The biggest one is that the required Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot isn't available for the general public to buy even if AT&T subscribers happen to live in one of the cities that has 5G coverage; an invite is required to purchase the Netgear hotspot. As for the multiple cities that AT&T mentioned, it doesn't say specifically which cities or how many.

The assumption is that the speed was achieved in some or all of the available 5G markets AT&T operates in, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Raleigh, San Antonio, and Waco. AT&T announced in February that it would be adding 5G service in Chicago and Minneapolis in 2019 in addition to the previously announced cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose.