Speedy 5G networks may still be years away from being available to consumers, but today the FCC took steps to make 5G wireless networks a reality.
The FCC today set the foundation for 5G networks by adopting rules that’ll govern spectrum above 24GHz. These rules open almost 11 GHz of high-frequency spectrum for flexible, mobile, and fixed wireless, which will exist in the 28 GHz, 37 GHz, 39 GHz and 64-31 GHz bands. These airwaves will be divided into exclusive use licensing, shared access, and unlicensed access use cases.
In its announcement, the FCC said that today’s actions make the U.S. the first country in the world to open up spectrum for 5G wireless.
As I mentioned before, it’ll be a while before most of us are using 5G on our smartphones, but it’s good to see the FCC making progress when it comes to 5G services. When it comes to the U.S. carriers, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have all said that they expect to begin testing 5G in 2016.