With the new launch, US Cellular now offers its customers low-band, mid-band and high-band mmWave 5G speeds and services
US Cellular announced the launch of its 5G mid-band network, which will benefits users in parts of 10 states across the country, the carrier said in a release.
US Cellular noted that its new 5G mid-band technology combined with a mid-band enabled device can provide up to 10 times faster speeds compared to its 4G LTE network and low-band 5G.
The telco noted that its 5G mid-band network will be initially available mainly in parts of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, including sections of Rockford, Illinois, Des Moines, Iowa and Milwaukee. Communities in Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia and Washington are also included in the initial rollout. By the end of the year, the company aims to cover more than 1 million households in its operating footprint with its 5G mid-band network.
“We view mid-band as the sweet spot of 5G because it provides broad coverage, low latency and fast speeds – enabling more people to connect to what matters most at home or on-the-go,” said Mike Irizarry, executive vice president and CTO at US Cellular. “As we approach serving 100,000 high-speed Internet customers later this summer, mid-band will play an important role in furthering the reach and enhancement of that product. We’ve made it a priority to expand the technology to more communities in the coming years.”
With this new launch, US Cellular now offers its customers low-band, mid-band and high-band mmWave 5G speeds and services. The company said it expects nearly 3 million households in its operating footprint will have access to 5G mid-band connectivity by the end of 2024.
The carrier’s 5G mid-band network is using spectrum in the 3.45 GHz band, which the company had secured last year. US Cellular said that Nordic vendors Ericsson and Nokia are working in this deployment.
In December 2022, US Cellular said it expanded its 5G next-generation network in a number of states thanks to a software update that improves 5G coordination between cell sites.
To accelerate its rollout, US Cellular is tapping into X2 coordination, a feature that connects neighboring eNodeBs in a to assist handover, and thus, providing rapid coordination of radio resources. Doing so is allowing the carrier to more easily and quickly extend existing 5G service to neighboring sites.
US Cellular is also touting the use of “Automatic Neighbor Relations” (ANR), an automation capability that promise to accelerate deployment of services with greater autonomy, improved real time network updates and greater accuracy.
