AT&T Looking To Launch LTE (4G) Network by Mid-2011

[MacRumors]

FierceWireless reports that U.S. iPhone carrier partner AT&T is on track to deploy its "4G" LTE cellular network by mid-2011, with plans to cover 70-75 million people by the end of 2011. The carrier has also stressed that it is investing in significant upgrades to its 3G network to support interim service improvements and as fallback for customers who will not receive 4G coverage until later in the roll-out process.

AT&T has said it wanted to wait for the LTE market to mature before moving forward with a full-scale deployment. Stankey said AT&T is working on a different kind of implementation for LTE than other carriers, and needs to carry forward its UMTS services to ensure that voice and data services can work simultaneously on both UMTS and LTE. The company is spending $700 million in capital expenditures on LTE this year and "will go far beyond that" in 2011, Stankey said.

AT&T announced in January that it had completed upgrading all of its 3G cell sites to accommodate HSPA 7.2 data speeds but that upgrades to backhaul connections were required before the carrier would actually be able to support the higher speeds. AT&T reports that it continues to deploy the backhaul upgrades around the country to support that effort.

But even beyond HSPA 7.2, AT&T is also pushing forward with HSPA+ on the way to 4G. HSPA+ technology will reportedly allow AT&T to offer real-world speeds of 7 Mbps, considerably faster that the real-world speeds offered under the HSPA 7.2 standard still rolling out now.

AT&T announced in February that it had partnered with Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson to provide equipment for its LTE network, and the carrier appears to be sticking to its planned schedule of a significant 2011 launch for the technology.

Article Link: AT&T Looking To Launch LTE (4G) Network by Mid-2011

 

[Small White Car]

Cool. So which iPhone do we think will have it? 2012 or 2013?

I'm kind of leaning towards 2012, but I don't think it's a sure bet.

 

[The General]

Meh. 3G is good enough for me.

 

[fadij]

maybe they should work on making their 3G better b4 they start anything else....i had them for years and every year my reception gets worst.

 

[jayhawk11]

Meh. 3G is good enough for me.

http://imgur.com/gLDqx.jpg

That upload speed is horrifying. What part of the country are you in?

 

[MarximusMG]

Hmm... It'll be interesting to see the wars erupt as Verizon readies their network in 2011 as well.

 

[sevimli]

Please fix 3G first....

 

[The General]

That upload speed is horrifying. What part of the country are you in?

That upload speed was a fluke, I usually get 1200 up, 5000ish down. I live in San Francisco.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Hmm... It'll be interesting to see the wars erupt as Verizon readies their network in 2011 as well.

Verizon will be in 30 major metropolitan areas by the end of this year. AT&T doesn't even start until mid next year.

Still, if Apple were to do a dual-mode phone with LTE, next summer is a small possibility now.

 

[Small White Car]

Meh. 3G is good enough for me.

Wow. I have never seen 3G that fast.

 

[techapocalypse]

let's hope for the iPhone to support it right away

 

[smithrh]

This looks like a workable strategy, but I wish they'd work a bit more on getting 3G into rural areas, or at least those cell sites covering rural interstates.

Going outside of town invariably drops me down to edge and that just won't do.

The notion that Verizon isn't investing any more into 3G isn't true; but it is true that there's no reasonable and workable upgrade to the existing EVDO Rev A like there is for AT&T. If AT&T would expand rural coverage their argument would be much better.

Plus, they still need to work on the dropped calls. It got better for a while but I dropped 3 times in my house yesterday, which is only about 1000 feet from the cell.

 

[cpalmer17]

Worried about VZW and losing exclusivity?

Might have nothing to do with it, but you have to think that if there really will be a Verizon iPhone, this news could help dissuade current AT&T customers from bolting if/when that happens!

 

[smithrh]

Wow. I have never seen 3G that fast.

Really? While the upload stinks (as the poster mentions) and the ping isn't great, the download speed is only a bit more than what I tend to see.

 

[Nermal]

Wow. I have never seen 3G that fast.

I've seen 17 Mb/s over HSPA+ so 5.5 is nothing to be amazed about

However, in NZ at least, prices are still too high for any "serious" use of those speeds. It's a shame really, because the mobile network is faster than my wired broadband.

 

[Full of Win]

I'm sure we will see this in about...2020?

ATT is a sack of failure.

 

[alexbates]

Thank you AT&T, so excited!

I have 4G WiMax as my home ISP, and constantly get 10Mbps Up 1Mbps down, without even having that great of a signal. It is so awesome!

 

[URFloorMatt]

Cool. So which iPhone do we think will have it? 2012 or 2013?

I'm kind of leaning towards 2012, but I don't think it's a sure bet.

I would bet on the 2011 iPhone. If they weren't planning on 4G capability for the iPhone 5th gen, they never would've named this one the iPhone 4--iPhone HD would've made much more sense given the features that were upgraded. The next iPhone will surely be the iPhone 4G, followed in 2012 by the iPhone 4GS. When organic naming opportunities like these come along, you don't pass them up.

AT&T says they'll have 70 million customers covered by the end of 2011, just in time for the new phone, and Verizon already plans to have 30 cities online by the end of 2010. There's no reason to sit on the sidelines until 2012, unless you want to needlessly manufacture yet another reason why the iPhone is inferior to its primary competitors.

I would also bet that the iPhone 4G is deployed later in the year than we're used to, particularly if an iPhone 4 variant ends up on Verizon or Sprint in the next few months.

 

[Small White Car]

Really? While the upload stinks (as the poster mentions) and the ping isn't great, the download speed is only a bit more than what I tend to see.

50% of that is what I consider 'very good.'

 

[chrmjenkins]

I would bet on the 2011 iPhone. If they weren't planning on 4G capability for the iPhone 5th gen, they never would've named this one the iPhone 4--iPhone HD would've made much more sense given the features that were upgraded.

The next iPhone will surely be the iPhone 4G, followed in 2012 by the iPhone 4GS. When organic naming opportunities like these come along, you don't pass them up.

I disagree. I think the current one is named iPhone 4 to avoid branding confusion, as so many people wanted to call the 3GS the 4G and want to call this one the 4G. I think they should just stick with the incremental scheme. Works with their OS's, both desktop and mobile

 

[mojohanna]

That's great and all, but what about the crappy service areas where there is no 3G or even spotty voice service?

 

[Converse]

Meh. 3G is good enough for me.

Holy *****, I've never seen download speeds like that.
That just made me wanna test the speeds here in Boston to see if perhaps they had improved since the beginning of summer:
I got 350 ping (meh), 1.4mb down and 1.2 up. Not bad considering I used to get like 0.8 down and 0.2 up! AT&T isn't all that bad. Edit: Granted, I'm comparing it to latin American countries where I lived for most of my life... I'd be faint if I saw anything over 200 kb/s on a land line :/

 

[jav6454]

That upload speed is horrifying. What part of the country are you in?

He must have done the test from an iPhone 3G or 3GS because they are capped at 384Kb/s uploads due to hardware. The upload speed will be terrible regardless how fast the connection is.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Let me ask you this, AT&T. Will my phone ever work in my house? It's not like I live out in the boonies. I'm in Oakland, CA for crying out loud. It's ridiculous.

 

[chrmjenkins]

He must have done the test from an iPhone 3G or 3GS because they are capped at 384Kb/s uploads due to hardware. The upload speed will be terrible regardless how fast the connection is.

He said himself it is bogus data. He normally uploads at 1.2 Mbps.