AT&T upgrades network as wireless traffic quadruples over past year
AT&T has announced this deployment is "one part of its ongoing initiatives to enhance the speed and performance of its network." AT&T also recently announced plans to upgrade its 3G nationwide network with HSPA 7.2 technology which promises faster mobile broadband speed. These upgrades are expected to be completed in 2011. A total of 1,900 cell sites are to be added by the end of this year.
The San Francisco Area in particular has seen a massive increase in 3G traffic. AT&T estimates the growth in data traffic to be close to 2000 percent since 2008. Overall United States network traffic has quadrupled in the past year.
AT&T attributes this tremendous growth in traffic to "more and more people upgrading to smartphones and integrated devices with full QWERTY keyboards."
This announcement comes on the heels of AT&T's highly publicized court battle over Verizon's depiction of AT&T's 3G network in its most recent series of commercials. AT&T claims that the coverage maps that Verizon displays in said ads mislead consumers into thinking that areas devoid of AT&T 3G coverage offer no coverage at all.
Monday, Verizon responded to the suit, saying "AT&T failed to invest adequately in the necessary infrastructure to expand its 3G coverage to support its growth in smartphone business and the usefulness of its service to smarthphone users has suffered accordingly."
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7.2 HSDPA by 2011? Verizon will have had an LTE network for a year by then. Way to be behind the times AT&T. =/
7.2 HSDPA by 2011? Verizon will have had an LTE network for a year by then. Way to be behind the times AT&T. =/
The PR release reads as AT&T?s 3G coverage areas will all be upgraded to 7.2Mbps. They have already had .2Mbps in certain areas for awhile now. I can?t imagine Verizon adding LTE over their entire data coverage area by 2011 when Verizon is still in early testing stages with LTE towers. Then we?ll get some public trials and USB 4G LTE cards for notebooks and eventually we?ll get more coverage and phones with LTE chips in them. I don?t see how you can think Verizon can have that all built today.
So how does this relate to actually expanding coverage? Who care if there are a few sites with 7.2mbps when the vast majority of the country has no 3G coverage at all? They throw out big numbers like 1900 cell towers, but what percentage of existing cell towers is that? Does that just mean they're upgrading their 3G towers by 2011 or converting EDGE towers to 3G?
3G speed doesn't bother me too much. I just want fewer dropped calls.
So how does this relate to actually expanding coverage? Who care if there are a few sites with 7.2mbps when the vast majority of the country has no 3G coverage at all?
The PR piece from AT&T was focused on the SF area completing the major 850MHz transfer. That is a big deal and warrants some media to let people know. Though we still need to get some people in the SF area to weigh in this. Numbers by themselves don?t really work as hard facts here.
They?ll be doing both, but they really should focus on getting the more populated areas as these affect more people at a time. If I?m on the highway and you drop to EDGE for a 20 mile stretch, big deal, but if your in the city and I drop a call because the tower can?t the load, that is a big deal, and just for you at that moment.