Here’s why AT&T’s new $9 billion spectrum won’t work with your current 5G phone
AT&T is planning a big push into mid-band 5G, a salvo that it says will put it on equal footing with rivals T-Mobile and Verizon in the battle for post-paid subscribers. The company, which by some estimates is thelaggard in the three-headed US wireless race,spent $9.1 billion on spectrumin the 3.45Ghz to 3.55Ghz range, an auction that raised over $22 billion for the FCC. Dish Networks, which is slowly building its own 5G network, spent over $7 billion for a similar number of licenses. T-Mobile spent a modest $2.9 billion in comparison.
While much of the media attention in recent weeks has been tocarriers' run-ins with the FAAand the airlines it regulates over C-Band spectrum potentially interfering with altimeters in some aircraft (a problem that was quickly proven minor), the 100Mhz of contiguous spectrum auctioned off as part of this more recent auction is just as important for AT&T as C-Band because it allows the company to better compete with T-Mobile (which owns over 200Mhz of 2.5Ghz spectrum) and Verizon (which won the mostC-Band spectrum) in the all-important mid-band space.
It’s taken a couple of years, but AT&T and Verizon, after beginning their 5G pushes emphasizing the myriad benefits of Ultra Wideband — ultra-fast, low-density millimeter-wave airwaves that are better for stadiums than suburbs — are acknowledging the importance of mid-band spectrum as the sweet spot for capacity and coverage.
During its recent earnings call, the company said that it would deploy equipment with a “one tower climb” approach, meaning that for most markets it plans to secure the hardware and antennas for both 3.45Ghz and C-Band service at the same time, a move that will save the company a significant amount of money. It also said that while some phones released in 2020 and 2021 will work on C-Band — the iPhone 12 and 13 line, Samsung’s Galaxy S21 series along with the Fold 3 and Flip3, and the Pixel 6 series — only phones released in 2022 will be able to take advantage of the 3.45Ghz signals.
Given that the 3.45-3.55Ghz range falls under the existing n77 5G band, which overlaps with C-Band, it was immediately unclear why this would be the case.AT&T told CNETthat “We’re not saying nothing [for older devices] but at this point, that’s not in the plan right now. Doesn’t mean we can’t go backwards, but at this point no.”
Android Police has learned that despite being part of the n77 band, this 100Mhz swath of spectrum was only certified, and is under the jurisdiction of,3GPP’s Release 16, which was finalized in 2020 and support for which is included in modem equipment released in 2022. While that includes the tower hardware and antennas, it crucially also includes modems inside chips like Qualcomm’s upcomingSnapdragon 8 Gen 1andMediaTek’s Dimensity 9000. Without support for Release 16 standards, older phones that support other mid-band spectrum, including C-Band, across the 900Mhz range that n77 represents, will not be able to talk to the network equipment.
This 3.45Ghz spectrum is a key holding for AT&T, which was outbid by Verizon in the earlier C-Band auction and owns about half that of its larger rival, which has already begun rolling out support to over 100 million people across the U.S. Both AT&T and Verizon will benefit from a second opening-up of C-Band spectrum towards the end of 2023, but until then AT&T needs this 3.45Ghz spectrum to fill any gaps, even if it has to shut out millions of phones released in 2020 and 2021 to achieve those goals. That’s going to be quite bruising when compared to devices on T-Mobile’s 5G network, dozens of which have supported its fast-and-flexible 2.5Ghz spectrum since 2020.
Still, thebest Android phonesof 2022, such as theSamsung Galaxy S22, will almost certainly support this updated version of band n77, which includes 3.45Ghz support under 3GPP Release 16, and by the end of the year every phone with a high-end Qualcomm or MediaTek chipset should be able to take advantage of that increased capacity.
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