AT&T aiming for 5G demo at RTX festival

AT&T is seeking FCC authorization to demonstrate 5G at Rooster Teeth's RTX 2018 Convention in Austin, Texas, in August.  

The company is asking for a one-month Special Temporary Authority (STA) to demonstrate the functionality, features and capabilities of 5G using experimental equipment in the 28 GHz band. The requested timeframe is July 30 to Aug. 30; the RTX convention is Aug. 3-5 at the Austin Convention Center.

AT&T said its 5G demonstrations will involve communications between up to three fixed base stations and up to six user equipment (UE) units placed within 100 meters of the base station antennas. Nokia is supplying the base stations and Intel is providing the receiver and UE, according to a spokesperson.

The 5G air link will be used to demonstrate digital technologies requiring very high speeds and low latencies, such as 4K TV, volumetric video and eSports/mobile gaming, the company said. The base station and the UE antennas will be placed indoors at a height of less than four meters above the floor inside the convention center.

The base station will have connectivity to an internal server providing content over the 5G air interface; the UEs can provide services to various devices through Wi-Fi access points connected to the UEs via Ethernet cable.

Austin has been a hotbed for AT&T's 5G developments. In February, the company announced plans to open a new 5G lab there. One of the first in-house projects built at the lab is the Advanced 5G NR Testbed System (ANTS), which AT&T describes as a first-of-its kind 5G testbed system that is proprietary to AT&T. 

RELATED: AT&T preps for 5G demo at June conference in Los Angeles area

The operator has been using special events around the country to showcase 5G. In early June, AT&T staged its Shape conference at Time Warner's Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where it showed presentations on edge technologies, artificial intelligence and immersive entertainment, as well as a 5G demonstration with Ericsson and Intel. 

RELATED: AT&T gets OK to do 5G immersive gaming demo at E3

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, AT&T conducted a 28 GHz demo to give gamers an up-close look at how a 5G connection can give them a live gaming experience virtually anywhere there’s network coverage. That demo also involved Ericsson, Intel and ESL.

Also in June, there was the 2018 U.S. Open, which took place at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Tuckahoe, New York. Ericsson, Intel and Fox Sports were also part of that.

The team set up a live 5G link at the seventh hole using AT&T's spectrum, the Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform, Ericsson millimeter wave radio and antenna system and 4K UHD cameras. Golf fans on DirecTV got to see all the action, which was transferred to an on-site Fox Sports production truck where the stream was encoded and decoded.