AT&T said that it is in advanced discussions with power companies and others to trial Project AirGig in at least two locations by this year. One location will be in the United States with others to be determined in the coming months.
AT&T first unveiled the Project AirGig four months back. The patented broadband-over-power lines (BPL) technology from AT&T Labs is touted of delivering multi-gigabit speeds in urban and rural areas using power lines. The AirGig technology involves placing small low-cost plastic antennas on top of existing power lines.
AT&T says this technology will be easier to deploy than fiber, can run over license-free spectrum and can deliver ultra-fast wireless connectivity to any home or handheld wireless device. Highlighting the importance of the trial, AT&T says that data use has increased by 250,000 percent since 2007, and this trend is not going to stop, with the rise of 4K mobile video streaming, augmented and virtual reality, smart homes and cities, autonomous vehicles and more.
AT&T updated that it has experimented with this unique BPL technology at its outdoor facility for some time with positive results. These results led to our development of new innovations like the Radio Distributed Antenna System (RDAS).
Andre Fuetsch, President of AT&T Labs & CTO
AT&T is focused on delivering a gigabit-per-second speed everywhere we can with our wired and wireless technologies. Project AirGig represents a key invention in our 5G Evolution approach. AT&T Labs is ‘writing the textbook’ for a new technology approach that has the potential to deliver benefits to utility companies and bring this multi-gigabit, low-cost internet connectivity anywhere there are power lines – big urban market, small rural town, globally.
