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AT&T’s big announcement landed with the expected corporate fanfare: its 5G Standalone (SA) network is now deployed nationwide. The press release, titled AT&T 5G Standalone Nationwide, was filled with carefully chosen, forward-looking phrases like “bold leap,” “next wave of innovation,” and setting the stage for “next generation applications.” On paper, this is a significant technical milestone. Moving from a Non-Standalone (NSA) network, which essentially uses a 5G radio with a 4G LTE core, to a pure, end-to-end 5G system is the final step in the evolution of this wireless generation.
But corporate milestones and user experience are two very different data sets. While AT&T celebrates the modernization of its core infrastructure, a closer look at the competitive landscape and real-world performance metrics suggests this "bold leap" is more of a necessary, and somewhat belated, step to catch up. T-Mobile, for instance, launched its 5G SA network back in 2020. Verizon, while more opaque with its official SA timeline, is already marketing network-slicing services that rely on this very technology.
AT&T’s announcement feels less like a breakthrough and more like a box being checked on a long-overdue project plan. The carrier emphasizes its deliberate, customer-first approach, stating it waited until the technology reached a certain “level of maturity.” This is a standard, risk-averse corporate narrative. The underlying question, however, is whether this new, mature core network solves the most pressing problem for mobile users today. The data suggests it does not.
The Freeway and the Off-Ramp
To understand the situation, an analogy is useful. Think of the wireless network as a national highway system. The move from NSA to SA is like upgrading the entire interstate from an old, eight-lane system to a futuristic, sixteen-lane automated superhighway. The core capacity is immense. But for the average user, the experience is dictated less by the highway itself and more by the local off-ramp—the cell tower they are connected to. If 41,000 cars are all trying to get off at the same single-lane exit, it doesn’t matter how fast the highway is. You’re still stuck in traffic.
This is the fundamental disconnect between AT&T’s announcement and the reality of network performance. The true bottleneck for most users isn't the core network; it's radio access congestion. This was demonstrated with startling clarity in a recent ZDNET field test, I compared 5G network signals of Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T at a baseball stadium - here's the winner, conducted outside Wrigley Field during a playoff game. The methodology was simple: test AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile speeds on identical phones at various locations around the packed stadium.
The results were a perfect illustration of the off-ramp problem. At the front gate, with a clear line of sight to the antennas, the performance was astronomical. Verizon clocked a download speed of 2,666 Mbps, and AT&T wasn’t far behind with an incredible 1,299 Mbps. These are the headline-grabbing numbers that carriers love. They prove the superhighway is, indeed, super.
But the moment the tester moved to a different gate, the system collapsed. At the Sheffield Avenue entrance, AT&T’s performance cratered to just 4.81 Mbps for downloads and a nearly unusable 0.45 Mbps for uploads. That’s a performance degradation of over 99.6%. Let me be precise: a drop of 99.63%. I've analyzed countless network performance reports, and seeing a carrier's throughput fall off a cliff like this simply by moving a few hundred feet is a classic indicator of severe, localized congestion. It has very little to do with whether the back-end core is SA or NSA.
This raises a critical question: If a network can deliver fiber-like speeds one minute and dial-up speeds the next, what does a "nationwide 5G SA" upgrade actually mean for the user on the ground? Is the core network the real bottleneck, or is it the last-mile radio access and network densification?
Performance is a Measure of Consistency, Not Peaks
The Wrigley Field test reveals the outlier nature of those multi-gigabit speeds. The most telling data point wasn't the peak performance, but the consistency—or lack thereof. While Verizon hit triple-digit speeds in seven out of ten locations, AT&T only managed it twice. T-Mobile, despite a lower peak speed away from the park, struggled the most with congestion, failing to even run a test at two locations. AT&T’s performance was wildly erratic, culminating in a download test at Gallagher Way that had to be abandoned after 12 minutes because it failed to complete a 2GB file transfer.
This isn’t an indictment of 5G technology itself. It’s a reality check on where the real investment needs to go. While AT&T touts its new “open and virtualized network” core, the user experience is still dictated by the number of physical assets—small cells, distributed antenna systems (DAS)—in high-traffic areas. This is where companies like Boldyn are making their mark, deploying neutral-host small cells in London and 5G systems in the New York City subway. That’s the unglamorous, capital-intensive work that actually solves the Wrigley Field problem.
AT&T’s 5G SA launch is a foundational step, and it does enable future technologies like network slicing and ultra-low latency applications. But the carrier's announcement vaguely touts “the next wave of innovation” without mentioning network slicing specifically, a service its competitors are already commercializing for enterprise and first responders. For the average consumer with a `Samsung Galaxy` or `Moto G 5G`, the immediate, tangible benefit of this core upgrade remains functionally zero. The promise of downloading a movie on the tarmac has been replaced by the reality of being unable to send a photo from the bleachers.
The Data Points to a Different Problem
Ultimately, AT&T’s nationwide 5G SA rollout is an exercise in infrastructure modernization that has been framed as a consumer revolution. It’s a necessary engineering project, but it’s not the magic bullet for the network congestion that remains the single biggest pain point for customers in crowded venues. The data from the field is unequivocal: peak speed is a marketing metric, but consistent, reliable throughput is the actual product. Right now, the carriers are selling the dream of a 16-lane superhighway while ignoring the gridlock on the exit ramps. This upgrade fixes the part of the network most people weren't complaining about.
