AT&T Completes One-Third of FirstNet Capacity Increase Effort; Randall Stephenson Comments

AT&T has finished one-third of its project to deploy a 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum to support the First Responder Network Authority, UrgentComm.com reported Wednesday.

The company expects the effort to result in a 50 percent capacity increase for FirstNet by the end of 2019 ahead of a transition to a 5G network.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said during a UBS Conference keynote interview that the 5G effort will enable the company’s customers in 12 markets to experience data-throughput speeds reaching 400 megabytes per second.

Stephenson added the company will prioritize the deployment of 5G for enterprise applications such as networking in robotic plants.

FirstNet’s subscribers include 3.6K public safety agencies comprising 250K users.