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AT&T Debuts the 5G Innovation Studio
The studio will explore new 5G applications and drive further adoption.
What's the news?
AT&T is officially opening the doors to a new innovation space – the AT&T 5G Innovation Studio. The studio, located in Plano, Texas, brings together the power of AT&T’s business, consumer and network organizations to accelerate the path to market for new 5G-centric product offerings and key initiatives. You can even take a virtual look around today:
Why is this important?
AT&T is bringing fast, reliable, secure 5G to more consumers, businesses and first responders across key areas: sports, retail, education, travel, public sector, and small businesses. AT&T has invested billions of dollars into building America’s Best Network1. We were the first to bring mobile 5G service to the U.S. in 2018, and our unmatched mix of 5G technology promises consumers and businesses of all sizes an exceptional experience – wherever they are.
5G is here, and we’ve only scratched the surface of its potential. We’re excited about the possibilities, but it’s important to remember it’s not just about speed - it’s about being transformational. That’s why we’ve launched the AT&T 5G Innovation Studio – to further drive widespread adoption of this revolutionary technology in a cost-effective way. And, we’re excited to have Ericsson and Nokia, studio sponsors, join us on this journey.
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What’s the goal?
In this space, we’ll work with customers and industry collaborators to ideate, test and validate new 5G-centric applications across a variety of industries.
One of the biggest benefits of 5G will be the reduction of latency, the increase in bandwidth and the overall reliability of the network. The studio will harness these network enhancements to improve consumer and business experiences. This includes technologies such as on-premise edge compute (MEC) and edge compute at the network edge (ANE) that when combined with 5G will bring new experiences to life.
We recently worked with Microsoft and the drone company EVA to deploy a test environment representative of our Microsoft Azure Edge Zone with AT&T. The environment, enabled by AT&T Network Edge, was equipped with cloud services including Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to host EVA’s drone command control application. The low latency of 5G combined with EVA’s app deployed at the network edge on Azure enabled autonomous drone control beyond visual line of sight. This proof of concept, along with ease of network and cloud scalability, demonstrates how AT&T and Microsoft’s technologies will enable the future of drone delivery in metro areas.
We’re also working to bring science fiction to reality - like holographic communication. We’re building on the success of our NBA holographic interviews during the 2020 playoffs with HoloVision and exploring new ways to enable immersive holographic experiences powered by AT&T 5G.
Additionally, the promise of 5G allows for an unprecedented amount of customization, giving us the opportunity to directly tune the network for very specific needs. This level of customization makes the impossible not only possible, but also probable. At the same time, we’ll remain focused on ensuring that this perpetual innovation doesn’t take away from but enhances the outstanding performance users expect on the network.
Examples might include cloud gaming with a network slice for consumers and our edge strategy to deliver our best performance for the gaming platform.
Okay, so what’s next?
Although 5G provides a massive step forward in the progression of network technology, we, like the world, will not stand still. Technologies like Wi-Fi 6 and CBRS cellular solutions are developing at an exponential rate and we’ll continue to factor these and others in our explorations. Our studio’s focus will help demonstrate opportunities where broadband, 5G and these emerging technologies can be used together to enhance the customer experience.
We’re excited to open our doors and start another chapter of innovation at AT&T, and you can expect updates on progress throughout the year.
1 AT&T 4G LTE awarded Best Network by GWS OneScore 2020. GWS conducts paid drive tests for AT&T and uses the data in its OneScore analysis.