AT&T Doubles Wireless Speeds in Six Cities
HSPA 7.2 is only coming to six cities this year according to AT&T.
Many consumers anxiously waiting for faster speeds on AT&T's 3G network may not see turbo-charged downloads until next year or possibly even 2011. The company announced this morning that only six U.S. cities would initially receive the High Speed Packet Access 7.2 upgrade this year: Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami. The network upgrade, according to AT&T, will provide "theoretical" peak speeds of 7.2 Mbps, doubling what 3G now offers and will serve as a bridge to the upcoming 4G LTE network.
As for the rest of the nation, AT&T plans to expand the HSPA 7.2 upgrade to 25 of the 30 largest markets in 2010. The company also claims that 90-percent of the entire network will have been upgraded to HSPA 7.2 in 2011, however AT&T plans to roll out six compatible smartphones and two notebook adapters by the end of this year. Electronista adds that the iPhone 3GS already supports 7.2 Mbps downloads on Rogers and other carriers with more advanced HSPA networks.
“With HSPA 7.2, we’re making the nation’s fastest 3G network even faster, and we’ll be able to deploy this technology before LTE networks, devices and equipment grow to scale,” said John Stankey, president and CEO, AT&T Operations. “Even as we look forward to LTE, we know that 3G will be the predominant mobile broadband network technology worldwide for smartphones for the next few years. AT&T’s strategy will deliver faster 3G speeds, while also allowing us to build the foundation for the 4G future.”
AT&T plans to begin testing 4G LTE wireless networks sometime in 2010, and looks to deploy the technology in 2011. "This schedule aligns with industry expectations of when a wide variety of compatible 4G wireless devices will be available," the company said.
- iTunes 9 Released, Brings Many New Features
- iPod Shuffles Get Colorful, Steely Special Edition
- New iPod Nano Records Video, Has FM Tuner
- DoS Attack Planned for Australian Gov. Tonight
- Steve Jobs Takes the Stage at iPod Event
- Are the Beatles Coming to iTunes Today?
- Skype for iPhone Finally Available in Canada
- Best Buy Posts 3rd Gen iTouch Accessories Early
- Final Fantasy XIII Release Date Announced
- Palm Launches Second WebOS Device, the Pixi
- iPhone OS 3.1.1 Out; Now $4.95 for iPod touch
- U.S. Copyright Office Opposes Google Book Deal
- Jobs: We Made the iTouch as Cheap as Possible
- $175,000 Projector Displays 4K Resolution
- Microsoft: Master Chief is Our Sugar Daddy
- JVC Reveals Blu-ray / HDD Recorder Combo
- Panasonic Reveals LED-Based Light Bulbs
- Report: Game Rentals May Come to PSP
- Micropayments May Come to Google News
Wow, wish I even got 3g in my hometown.(which is home to a major university) Way to go ATT!
Same problem here. I live at OSU, but yet I am 30 miles from nearest 3g possibilities....super gay.
Is AT&T going to double the 5 GB limit on their "unlimited" plans? No? Then why should I give a fuck?
Before you talk about speed, lets fix the 3G reliability first. Att you can talk about speed all you want if it is not reliable it is useless.
Montezuma and War2k9 hit the nail on the head. Faster speed is nice, but if you hit the wall on your "unlimited" service bandwidth limit, or have sketchy reliabilty... what's the point? That's like building a super-smooth, formula-1 quality race track for push-cart derby race cars.
Im lucky enough to live in Las Vegas and use Clear's 4G Wi-max! None of this AT&T crap.
rofl AT&T
Im sick and tired of their bullshit lying ADs, its as "fuck up" as those Apple/Mac Ads.
Yeah lets just say you really gonna double your speed. like War2k9 said. there is no point in doing so when you cant go faster than 5 KB a second. I have 3G Im in NyC and its slow as fuck. gg AT&T, cant wait to cancel my account with you (2 months left, YES!)
ITs like you can have 20 different water pipe, but your source can supply "only" 1 oz of liquid per minute. thats how AT&T network works.
No San Antonio love, damn company used to have its main offices here now we are an afterthought? I should expect it will get here sooner than later though.
by increasing compression technology are you not also increasing bandwith as well.
4g objectives
High network capacity: more simultaneous users per cell
A data rate of at least 100 Mbit/s between any two points in the world
A spectrally efficient system
Let's fix the fact you absolutely pay out of the ass for the serivce, which for them is a small investment now with a near non-existant upkeep cost.
We're still absolutely getting owned to communication companies. =D
Incidentally, why has this been posted as news on THG UK? Like we give a crap what AT&T are doing in the US.
Like I'm happy all you Shermans are getting this, but really we don't need to hear about it in the UK...
I think the point of the unlimited limit of 5 gig as been addressed.
Let’s talk about response time / latency. I don’t care how big the pipe is when using the web it is all about the latency. If you have slow latency like ATT has web browsing is going to be slower that HELL. Hughes Net Satellite has better response time than ATT. Even Sprint has faster response time. The only thing a bigger pipe give us is faster downloads of large files which eats up our unlimited 5 gigs of data.
Let me add:
Give me 512k download and 20ms resonse time over 6meg download and 300ms resonse time ANY DAY OF THE WEEK
I have another year with AT&T but I think this is it. Been with them for 3 years and I'm not thrilled with the service. I'm going with Verizon because when I had a corporate phone on their service, good speeds and great coverage.
Yawn. Give me a call when the 3G Microcell comes out so I don't have to hang out the window to call somebody.
i live on the Texas southern border and ATT has 3G service throughout the region... i have to go out of my way into nowhere, or across the border, to loose my 3G signal... so i don't really understand why they wouldn't have it in larger areas or around universities... heck, i even went fishing offshore about a mile and still got a 3G signal...
Weel it's sure faster than this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/ [...] broadband/
Boost gives me like .5kb a second. Bring that up to 10kb a sec, and I'd be happy
Six cities that I don't live in!
I spend my time around the Dayton area of Ohio. I have tested my AT&T network speeds using an iPhone 3GS. The speeds vary, but my typical speeds are around 140.9 KBytes/s down and 41.5 KBytes up, with a ping of around 433 (I have seen the ping take as long as 2900 ms when I first connect to the network, but after some communication the ping gets quicker). This is at 4:38 PM on a Saturday. When I went to Hawaii on a cruise this last month I was able to use the 3G network while on the ship if we were 'close' to an island. I found myself checking to see if I had service to see if we were close to our port. I just wanted to share my experience. I wish the data plan on the phone was cheaper, but for a mobile internet connection (I don't stay long in many places so I require mobile, and the iPhone fits my needs for what I'm doing so I don't need a carry around a laptop all day) I am satisfied with the service.