AT&T announced Monday that it has improved 5G performance across its network in the continental United States by activating wireless spectrum — the frequencies used for data transmission — that it acquired in a $23 billion purchase from EchoStar in September. If you’re an AT&T customer who owns a 5G-capable phone or subscribes to AT&T Internet Air home internet, you might already be seeing a boost.
The company says customer download speeds can increase 80% when connected to the wireless network in areas with the upgraded spectrum. For AT&T Internet Air subscribers, the speed increase could be up to 55%. The new increased capacity opens up more possibilities for gaming, streaming content and accessing other high-data applications, as well as connecting rural customers who don’t have access to home fiber internet options.
The upgrade is also arriving — at least so far — without a price increase for existing customers. Verizon and T-Mobile instituted three-year and five-year price guarantees in 2025, so hopefully AT&T’s improved infrastructure doesn’t trigger higher rates. Based on the company’s announcement, though, the expanded spectrum also benefits AT&T internally, making its network more efficient, reducing the need to build new cellular towers and encouraging customers to subscribe to both mobile and home internet services.
It also boosts the capabilities of AT&T’s FirstNet program, which enables first responders to have guaranteed communications even when capacity is restricted, such as during a natural disaster.
Over a period of “a few weeks,” the company has deployed hardware to 23,000 cell sites that enables midband (3.45 GHz) spectrum in more than 5,300 cities across 48 states, according to AT&T.
What’s the significance of midband? 5G networks work across a swathe of spectrum frequencies. High-speed millimeter-wave signals offer the highest speed and performance, but have limited range and don’t work well with obstructions, such as buildings. Low-band 5G offers the slowest speeds but works over a broader area. Midband is a balance of the two, offering faster speeds than low-band with larger coverage.
From the customer’s perspective, this should translate into faster, more consistent network access. If you’re an AT&T subscriber, you’ll see “5G+” in the status bar of your phone when connected to a millimeter wave or midband network, or “5G” in a low-band area. (You might also see “5GE,” which is actually 4G LTE and not 5G.)
To give you a single data point, I was sitting in my home office in Seattle using an AT&T-connected phone with full bars and “5G+” displayed. I ran Ookla’s Speedtest app and got download speeds of nearly 500Mbps and upload speeds of around 80Mbps. That’s comparable to many home internet speeds (and echoes the performance I got on a recent United Airlines flight using onboard Starlink Wi-Fi).
(Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)