Following yesterday's snafu, AT&T has taken today to announce "nationwide availability" for its 5G network, which covers around 63% of the US population thanks to the addition of 40 new markets. Celebrating this slightly arbitrary milestone, the company is bringing 5G access to all of its current "Unlimited" plans starting August 7th. Cricket customers will also get access to 5G on August 21st.

As always, when it comes to carrier plans and changes, there are a lot of individual specifics that make it hard to wade through exactly who is getting what. So far as we can tell, on August 7th, the company's Unlimited Starter, Business Unlimited Web-Only, and Business Starter, Performance, and Elite plans will be able to use 5G for no added cost. Pre-paid customers can also get 5G, but seemingly only on the highest-end Unlimited Plus plan.

5G availability on Cricket is more of a question. It sounds like it will be exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G when it happens, but more details are promised in the future.

40 more markets have also picked up 5G access:

  • Mohave County, AZ
  • Little Rock, AR
  • Polk County, AR
  • San Miguel County, CO
  • Daytona Beach, FL
  • Jacksonville, FL
  • Monroe County, FL
  • Putnam County, FL
  • Sioux City, IA-NE
  • Garrett County, MD
  • Battle Creek, MI
  • Cheboygan County, MI
  • Hubbard County, MN
  • Koochinching County, MN
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Leake County, MS
  • Deer Lodge County, MT
  • Great Falls, MT
  • Colfax County, NM
  • Grant County, NM
  • Santa Fe County, NM
  • Glen Falls, NY
  • Adjuntas Municipality. PR
  • Ceiba Municipality, PR
  • Ciales Municipality, PR
  • Cherokee County, SC
  • Kingsbury County, SD
  • Marshall County, SD
  • Atascosa County, TX
  • Burleson County, TX
  • Chambers County, TX
  • Cherokee County, TX
  • Corpus Christi, TX
  • Edwards County, TX
  • Houston, TX
  • Laredo, TX
  • San Antonio, TX
  • Box Elder County, UT
  • Casper, WY
  • Sheridan County, WY

In case you spent the last day under a rock, yesterday AT&T sent out a poorly-worded warning to some customers that they would need to swap phones to continue receiving service as a result of network upgrades in the company's ongoing move to 5G. The change is a result of mandated HDVoice support, but AT&T's whitelisting apparently excludes some recent models, and the company has done little to clarify confusion on the subject.

The full details of AT&T's plan changes are available in the press release just below.

PRESS RELEASE