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

[StephenCampbell]

The best AT&T reception in general as well as 3G coverage is in Seattle. Anywhere you go in the city it is consistently faster and more stable than almost any Wi-fi connection. Always faster than 3000kbs down and 1000kbs up.

I've been around a lot recently checking this out, and Seattle definitely has the clearest, fastest, most reliable coverage. I don't know why.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

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

ATT is a sack of failure.

I believe the phrase is "bag of hurt."

 

[jmull]

I don't care. Just make the Interwebs get to my hotspot to my iPod Touch as fast as possible as soon as possible!

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

New iPhones are released around mid year. Hmm...

 

[bella92108]

Am I the only one to state that these "charts" DON'T SAY A DAMN THING!?!?!

Seriously.... here's AT&T's slide deck from 2000...

2000: Some people will have cellphones
2005: More people will have cellphones

And another slide they put out for their home internet in 2002...

2002: DSL available and customers want it
2009: DSL available and more want it, and want faster speed

If you ever wondered where your cell phone bill goes to, look at all the employees AT&T has that do little to nothing to progress the company. I laughed out loud when I saw these charts, as they really say nothing. Everyone knows technology is progressing, and this dumbs it down about 15 notches.

Furthermore, in 2007 their slide said "AT&T to launch MMS and Tethering in 2007"... and we saw how that happened.... then in 2009 they said "AT&T to launch improved 3G in SF and NY" and we saw how that happened. It's amazing that the American public tolerates such utter crap being spouted, when they're paying more on average than any other developed nation, for service that averages less quality than any other developed nation, AND less on average than most DEVELOPING nations... WTF is wrong with this scene!

 

[Rocketman]

500,000 LTE subscribers in 2010? I wonder where they are?

Rocketman

 

[bella92108]

500,000 LTE subscribers in 2010? I wonder where they are?

Rocketman

Poland, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, South American Countries...... you know, countries outside of the US... "worldwide".... the US is always last in the cellular race.

 

[CFreymarc]

This is good news. However, when this is implemented and fully working, I'm sure a bunch of wankers on here will complain that they can't stream 1080p, 128 Hz, 3D video in real-time through the network. Bet on that!

 

[MacNewbie03]

AT&T needs to roll out 3G nation wide first. Look at AT&T's coverage map of 3G...It is horrible coverage compared to Verizon. I so can't wait for a Verizon Iphone.

No kidding. I live in a rural area. Verizon has 3G here but not At&T. My area was part of Centennial Wireless whom AT&T purchased, when the purchase was first announced they said they would be upgrading the Centennial towers to 3g. They lied.

 

[bella92108]

This is good news. However, when this is implemented and fully working, I'm sure a bunch of wankers on here will complain that they can't stream 1080p, 128 Hz, 3D video in real-time through the network. Bet on that!

Yeah, I agree with you. People assume that LTE means faster speeds which is absolutely incorrect. In most markets where 4G has launched globally, 4G is a fraction of the speed of 3G. Sure it's capable speed is higher, but the speed is entirely dependent on the backhaul, just like any other technology. We've reached a point where the broadcast technology is miles ahead of the backhaul capabilities, and in the US it's really slow to build out backhaul.

Lesson #1, LTE doesn't mean anything except a change in technology.

 

[bella92108]

No kidding. I live in a rural area. Verizon has 3G here but not At&T. My area was part of Centennial Wireless whom AT&T purchased, when the purchase was first announced they said they would be upgrading the Centennial towers to 3g. They lied.

Holy Toledo.... literally, look at AT&T's coverage map, HOLEY TOLEDO! hehe, sorry I saw you're from rural Ohio and I just HAD to say it. ;-)

 

[coolbreeze]

I wish all of you with a 2 gig limit the very best of luck.

In other words, you will blow through that in days with LTE.

Signed, a happy Spring EVO user.

 

[bella92108]

I wish all of you with a 2 gig limit the very best of luck.

In other words, you will blow through that in days with LTE.

Signed, a happy Spring EVO user.

Clearly you have no understanding of the fundamentals of the shift in technology. If you have a cable modem that is 20 megabit, and hook up a 802.11g router (capable of broadcasting 54 mbit), your laptop will get 20 megabit. Say you upgrade the router to 802.11n (capable of broadcasting 300 mbit)... your laptop still will get 20 megabit. You won't consume data any faster, nor any more just because the transport method has increased it's capacity. The limitation is the backhaul (the speed of your cable modem).

You really should be careful about spreading misinformation based on your lack of understanding of the technology. It is funny, however, that you sign your email as a Sprint customer. It's similar to the class nerd making fun of the band geek... there's no winner, both AT&T and Sprint suck, and to imply you're better because you have Sprint is funny! "Proud to get an award for showing up to the race!"

Some tactless people would also point out that Sprint generally appeals to those in a less-desirable social or economic demographic, but I'm not going to go there with this post. hehe ;-)

 

[coolbreeze]

Clearly you have no understanding of the fundamentals of the shift in technology. If you have a cable modem that is 20 megabit, and hook up a 802.11g router (capable of broadcasting 54 mbit), your laptop will get 20 megabit. Say you upgrade the router to 802.11n (capable of broadcasting 300 mbit)... your laptop still will get 20 megabit. You won't consume data any faster, nor any more just because the transport method has increased it's capacity. The limitation is the backhaul (the speed of your cable modem).

You really should be careful about spreading misinformation based on your lack of understanding of the technology. It is funny, however, that you sign your email as a Sprint customer. It's kinda like the class nerd making fun of the band geek... there's no winner, both AT&T and Sprint suck, and to imply you're better because you have Sprint is funny! Many posts would point out that Sprint generally appeals to those in a less-desirable social or economic demographic, but I'm not going to go there with this post. ;-)

Ok, so you stream Slingplayer on LTE with a 2 gig limit. 30 days goes by. Are you under your 2 gig limit for data?

My wife still has ATT and a 3GS. I paid the ETF because I just feel Sprint has the better deal and data network.

Now when the iPhone 6 comes out with unlimited data, I'll be back. Until then, I have no interest in ATT and the iPhone, just IMHO-YMMV.


Oh, and your comment about Sprint being the choice for low-income people. That just speaks for itself my man. Very ignorant of you my friend. You would wish you had my life if you saw it. Trust me .

 

[bella92108]

Ok, so you stream Slingplayer on LTE with a 2 gig limit. 30 days goes by. Are you under your 2 gig limit for data?

My wife still has ATT and a 3GS. I paid the ETF because I just feel Sprint has the better deal and data network.

Now when the iPhone 6 comes out with unlimited data, I'll be back. Until then, I have no interest in ATT and the iPhone, just IMHO-YMMV.

Not sure, I can't say that I sit and stream my Slingplayer on LTE, 3G, EDGE, or otherwise. Again I suppose if being able to watch TV from your phone, it's the demographic you're in that maybe Sprint is a fit for you.

Glad you're over at Sprint now, I hear so many things about their network quality, outstanding customer service, overall customer loyalty, and vast selection of amazing handsets.

Wait... so "When the iPhone 6 comes out with unlimited data, I'll be back" ... then you follow with "I have no interest in the iPhone" ... Wow, so scattered with your comments.

"Here at Sprint, we don't care about your credit rating, nor do we mind if you pay your bill a couple weeks late. We'll take anyone who's willing to sign the contract, and we'll give you unlimited data on a sub-par network, with a handset that works in all 46 states.... -- wait -- what... there's 50 states? Oh sh$t!" ...

 

[coolbreeze]

Not sure, I can't say that I sit and stream my Slingplayer on LTE, 3G, EDGE, or otherwise. Again I suppose if being able to watch TV from your phone, it's the demographic you're in that maybe Sprint is a fit for you.

Glad you're over at Sprint now, I hear so many things about their network quality, outstanding customer service, overall customer loyalty, and vast selection of amazing handsets.

Wait... so "When the iPhone 6 comes out with unlimited data, I'll be back" ... then you follow with "I have no interest in the iPhone" ... Wow, so scattered with your comments.

"Here at Sprint, we don't care about your credit rating, nor do we mind if you pay your bill a couple weeks late. We'll take anyone who's willing to sign the contract, and we'll give you unlimited data on a sub-par network, with a handset that works in all 46 states.... -- wait -- what... there's 50 states? Oh sh$t!" ...

bedtime sonny.

 

[AidenShaw]

We've reached a point where the broadcast technology is miles ahead of the backhaul capabilities, and in the US it's really slow to build out backhaul.

Very good that you used the phrase "backhaul capabilities".

The technology is there to bring the backhaul speeds up to the broadcast speeds - but the carriers don't want to spend the money to run the bandwidth to all of the local towers to make that possible.

And even when they do, you'll still have the "shared bandwidth" issue. Even if one LTE phone per tower can get full bandwidth, it falls apart if tens or hundreds or even more phones are simultaneously active on the same tower.

I'll stick with FIOS or other hardwired connections for my main link....

 

[JGowan]

I still live in freaking Edge-ville. Thanks, AT&T!

 

[bella92108]

I still live in freaking Edge-ville. Thanks, AT&T!

Just think how much $$$ you'll save being able to subscribe to 250MB plan knowing it'll last you the whole month at EDGE speeds ;-)

 

[kdarling]

Carriers have hugely increased their focus on backhaul updates, moving up what used to be ten year plans, to just a few years.

Backhaul is considered critical, and companies are paying bigtime to get their entire infrastructure updated in the next couple of years in order to support LTE and/or HSPA.

Previously, cell sites had around 1-10 Mbps backhaul. Now they're all being upgraded to 50-400 Mbps, with (for example) Verizon averaging 100Mbps per tower.

It's considered so important to update quickly, that (for example) I recently wrote a carrier app that decreased the update time per tower by just 30 minutes, and even that relatively small time savings was considered critical.

 

[Torresangel88]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

att better not charge extra for 4g lte like sprint charges for the evo. I would not like to pay $10 extra for lte that I won't even have

 

[TuckBodi]

3 dropped calls just today.

They lie.

 

[Anghammarad]

500,000 LTE subscribers in 2010? I wonder where they are?

Rocketman

Telia, the largest carrier in Sweden have a LTE network and they recently rolled out plans to cover all areas with more than 200 people living by the end of 2011.

 

[nukztar]

Confused by the negatives

I think a lot of you a painfully misguided as to what LTE will mean. I see a lot of "fix my 3g first" comments.

As mentioned by a few smart chaps on this thread, its all about mobile backhaul. You have to understand that most 3g base stations still use TDM transmission (T1 etc) to get to the RBS controller node. This is where there is a huge bottleneck. The sudden surge in data was not adequately planned for.

LTE is now driving the importance of mobile backhaul even more by utilizing ethernet speeds to each base station. This has a few challenges... the newer base stations allow for splitting voice and data where voice goes over TDM and data over ethernet, but the older ones dont do this. So ethernet pseudowire solutions etc are the rage right now. High capacity ethernet to the base station is the key for data growth here.

so essentially LTE backhaul expansions will benefit all services including 3G/Edge.

 

[n64kps]

Meh. 3G is good enough for me.

That's some pretty bad upload...

Sprint 4G FTW!