All AT&T phones with 5G C-Band support and network speed tests vs 4G LTE

AT&T phones with C-Band 5G support on the C-Band network

• Verizon’s new coverage map says it’s blanketing more than 46 metro areas with C-band, AT&T only lists eight—and it doesn’t have maps.
• C-band offers the boost that AT&T needs. Download speeds on the C-band site were triple our average AT&T speeds in the rest of Chicago.
• Low band 5G in Chicago didn’t give us any advantage over 4G performance compared to the boosts we saw from C-band 5G.
• AT&T’s 40MHz C-band channel is twice as big as the largest possible 4G channel, so it makes a real difference in performance. In comparison, Verizon uses 60MHz C-band channels and T-Mobile uses 100MHz, non-C-band.
• AT&T is willing to let Verizon take the big C-band related headlines for now, while it plans to accelerate its buildout in the second half of 2022 and through 2023.

Of note is that the low-band 5G network of AT&T, just like the low-band 5G networks of T-Mobile or Verizon, didn’t exhibit faster speeds compared to the carrier’s robust 4G network that was shamefully depicted with a 5GE (for Evolution) icon on AT&T phones when 5G was still a twinkle in its engineers’ eyes. AT&T got in regulatory trouble about it as a misleading claim, but in fact it’s 4G LTE network is indeed “Enhanced” in comparison with low-band 5G that reaches far but not fast.

Here’s how AT&T explains its low- vs mid- vs high-band 5G network differences: 

• AT&T’s low-band 5G is fast and can travel farther than AT&T’s high-band 5G+ and penetrate through buildings and objects.
• AT&T’s mid-band 5G+ (C-Band) fills the gap between the two current bands by traveling farther than high-band 5G+ and providing faster speeds than low-band.
• High-band 5G+ (mmWave) provides lightning-fast speeds, but has limited reach so is used primarily in stadiums and high-traffic areas like entertainment districts.