NEW YORK - As it gets back on the road, AT&T is taking time to remind people about AT&T 5G, which is now reaching 250 million people. While this is what separates T-Mobile 5G from the broadest reach of any U.S. carrier, AT&T has plans to supercharge its network, with the faster 5G Plus service playing a key role.

AT&T showed off some of its experiences with partner brands, including Warner Media's sister brands, at a press event on Wednesday (July 14) to illustrate what's to come. And 5G Plus carried the most weight in the announcement, as AT&T plans to bring its 5G high-speed brand to more airports. AT&T's partner in this project is Boingo (not to be confused with Gogo for in-flight Wi-Fi).

During a demonstration session using SpeedTest, AT&T representatives showed that AT&T 5G Plus download speeds outperform AT&T 4G by a factor of 12. For upload speeds, the difference was even starker: 35.5 Mbps on 5G Plus and 2.54 Mbps on 4G, almost 14 times faster.

AT&T 5G Plus will not yet be installed at local airports; AT&T aims to launch service at seven major U.S. airports by the end of 2021 and 25 by the end of 2022. Individual airports include New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport

. As of the end of May, Verizon's ultrafast 5G ultra-wideband service is available at Chicago O'Hare, Columbus, San Antonio, Des Moines, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, Dulles International, Chicago Midway International, McCarran International, Tampa International Airport, Indianapolis International Airport, Reagan International Airport, and John Wayne Airport are already available at some of the 13 airports.

AT&T also highlighted the many ways in which 5G will improve conditions on the go during the 5G event: AT&T and AR-enabled children's book company Bookful announced a new partnership, creating a new virtual book "shelf" just for AT&T users. Data-intensive AR books will have higher fidelity and shorter latency with high-bandwidth 5G, we were told; AT&T also showed off a demo with IP from parent company Warner Media: also, the Instagram AR lens "A New Legacy" and Harry Potter's Virtual Reality Experience proof-of-concept videos were also shown.

Sports and 5G are also on AT&T's agenda, with the carrier offering more ways to track play in games. I saw a demo of an upcoming addition to the Chicago Bulls' official app, which will allow users to track their games and the games they are playing. The person in charge mentioned that a feature AT&T would love to see happen is the ability to tap on an entry in the timeline to see the highlights. However, that is not yet available.

AT&T said it is considering adding a similar feature to the WNBA's app because it is an "official 5G innovation partner" of the NBA and WNBA.

In the Google Stadia demo, we were able to play Mortal Kombat 11 to see how seamless cloud gaming is with 5G. I won both of my online matches, but I did notice a bit of lag in the second match.

AT&T also made several announcements about its evolving 5G coverage. The company said that 5G coverage now covers more than 250 million people across the U.S. AT&T 5G Plus (mmWave) can be found in 38 cities and 20 venues across the country, with plans to expand to 40 cities and some 40 venues by the end of 2021.

AT&T completed field testing of C-band frequencies this spring and will soon deploy the first 40 MHz of speed-enhancing spectrum it won in the FCC auction. This C-band buildout plan aims to cover 70-75 million people by the end of 2022 and 200 million people by 2023.

Personally, I tend to turn off 5G on my phone because I don't want to drain my device's battery for a modest speed increase at this point. I even consider myself a 5G skeptic, so this summer will give me one of the few opportunities to see what this new wireless technology is good for.

I will be visiting two very densely populated venues over the next few months, Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Similarly, AT&T and Boingo did not list my choice of Newark Liberty International Airport on their target list.

AT&T 5G is available in both New York and Las Vegas, but frustratingly, neither venue is included in the list of available AT&T 5G Plus venues. So I'll see for myself if I can enable 5G on my iPhone 12 Pro Max or leave it off.