In a blog post the company said that the new radios would be “virtually unseen from street level” and can be deployed within 15 minutes on street lamps.
The radios were developed in partnership with mobile tech manufacturer Ericsson, and urban solutions provider Ubicquia. The compact, small cell radios can be deployed globally by plugging into existing streetlights that utilize a National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standardized connector, according to the company.
“No long wires and big, bulky boxes – a true aesthetic improvement,” said Gordon Mansfield, AT&T’s VP of mobility access & architecture in the blog entry.
These new low to mid-band 5G radios are not being seen as replacements for the current city architecture of mmWave antennas which are far more visible and have a much larger range.
Instead, AT&T see them as helping reduce the need for more standalone small cell towers in cities. No specific details were given on when and where the field testing was taking place.
“We are now in the process of field testing and deploying commercially available units in multiple cities,” Mansfield wrote.