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AT&T Prepares to Launch LTE 4G Network in 5 Cities This Summer

Pretty funny. You can always gauge how empty someone's life is by the ferociousness with which they defend the merits of their region. You can qualify the "importantness" of a city in whatever way you wish.

I live in the bay area and it is a cultural wasteland compared to places like Portland, Seattle, Chicago, NYC, but the weather is better. If you want uninteresting people desperately trying to make as much money as possible before dying meaninglessly at 55 from a type-A heart attack then this is the place for you.

It sucks less than Texas, but if I were building cell towers I'd probably not be worried about racism and rabid Christianity.

Thus, dear friends, our discussion of a city's "importantness" is a little misguided.

Anyway, I just wanted to take a cheap shot at texans. Wankers.
 
I'd be happy with consistent 7+ Mbps data rate. Makes sense for Apple to hold off on LTE capable iPhones until more carriers have the backend capacity. On Fido I'm getting about 3 Mbps at best even in the city but it would be nice if it were greater. I know some people will be throwing their arms up in the air at Apple not making 4G capable iPhone next revision but I bet it won't be until 2012 that more carriers are ready to roll out faster networks.
 
Maybe these cities have decent enough backhaul in place but then again, there won't be that much lte traffic at the beginning. I'm more interested in how they are doing the backhaul. Verizon said it's only using fiber to connect lte (for the backhaul). Haven't seen anything from att since earlier in the year when they didn't give me a warm fuzzy on their backhaul for the current system.

As usual, get what works in your area.
 
RalfTheDog said:
How many times to we need to keep saying this, Skunkwood North Dakota is not a major metro area.

:)
I would not brag about one day. When you can get four days of heavy use per charge, please come back.
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I don't live in North Dakota... no one does really. But Verizon provides service there!

One day is common for most smart phones. Maybe for an iPhone, but I do not use that.
 
Too bad you probably STILL won't be able to send or receive any data at any event in Cowboy Stadium because their back end can't handle the load. :mad:
 
Whatever! I'm still living in the EDGE network. Probably will for a long time to come. This means nothing to me as an ATT subscriber.
 
If AT&T's iPhone supports HSPA+ then we're going to have a 4G iPhone.

I know it's not LTE but the difference won't be very noticeable for several years until LTE is in its next revision. HSPA+ theoretically supports up to 28.8 Mbps speeds anyway...PLENTY fast and most certainly as fast as if not faster than Verizon's LTE network.
 
Ammo said:
If AT&T's iPhone supports HSPA+ then we're going to have a 4G iPhone.

I know it's not LTE but the difference won't be very noticeable for several years until LTE is in its next revision. HSPA+ theoretically supports up to 28.8 Mbps speeds anyway...PLENTY fast and most certainly as fast as if not faster than Verizon's LTE network.
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there is your key word...

seeing as att has already released HSPA+ handsets as "4G" and in real world speed tests it has often been reported to have slower speeds than ATT 3G, I wouldn't hold my breath for 28.8Mbps HSPA+ that will be faster than VZW LTE.
 
ToroidalZeus said:
No major cities = fails.

New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco these are the cities that matter not Chicago, Atlanta and Houston.
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It's much easier and faster to roll out cell phone towers in Texas and probably in other southern states. I once read an article quoting a CEO from one of the major networks (I forget whether it was AT&T or Verizon) who said it was crazy how long it takes to get a permit for a cell phone tower in a state like California or New York, with all the environmental permits and so forth that are required. I can't recall the exact quote, but my impression is that it sometimes takes years of wrangling. The CEO specifically cited Texas as being a very favorable environment where things can be done very fast.

Why would they spend a longer time and more money to set up networks in states with a high regulatory burden first, or risk that their plans may be interrupted or delayed because of a need of a difficult to obtain permit in one area or another, when they can reach an overall larger population using less money and in less time by starting first elsewhere?

I wouldn't blame AT&T. Blame your lawyers, state politician-goons and judges in California and New York.
 
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lazyrighteye said:
Maybe 'density' would be a better parameter to consider when testing cellular speeds. Maybe not.
But if so, the top 10 U.S. cities by density are as follows:

New York, NY
Paterson, NJ
San Francisco, CA
Jersey City, NJ
Cambridge, MA
Daly City, CA
Boston, MA
Inglewood, CA
Santa Ana, CA
El Monte, CA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
Click to expand...


I'm not quite sure where you got your data...this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density
shows US cities ranked by population density and 8 of top ten are simply the NYC metro area.

Daly City comes in 49th on the list, El Monte 69th.

Here are the top 10:
1 Guttenberg, New Jersey
2 Union City, New Jersey
3 West New York, New Jersey
4 Hoboken, New Jersey
5 New York City, New York
6 Maywood, LA
7 Cliffside Park, New Jersey
8 East Newark, New Jersey
9 Passaic, New Jersey
10 Cudahy, LA

[...typed from the 4th largest city in the US... Houston. (based purely on population)]
 
xxBURT0Nxx said:
fast? hardly.... they are the last major carrier in the US to make the move to 4G.

And why would it affect the release of the iPhone which is NOT going to support LTE?
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Technically, T-Mobile doesn't have 4G, they just advertise HSDPA+ as "4G".

But if you exclude T-Mobile and are only talking about the "Big 3" (AT&T, Sprint & Verizon), then yes, AT&T is the last to the party.
 
b0r3dguy said:
Technically, T-Mobile doesn't have 4G, they just advertise HSDPA+ as "4G".

But if you exclude T-Mobile and are only talking about the "Big 3" (AT&T, Sprint & Verizon), then yes, AT&T is the last to the party.
Click to expand...
It really comes down to if you distinguish 4G as speeds, or by the technology on the backend. Even still, T-Mobile's "fake" 4G is faster than Sprint 4G in a lot of places and T-Mobile is going to be upgrading to 42Mbps this year....
 
DigMe said:
Too bad you probably STILL won't be able to send or receive any data at any event in Cowboy Stadium because their back end can't handle the load. :mad:
Click to expand...

This a *physics* problem that no carrier worldwide will be able to deal with without spending a huge amount of money.

It's not a backhaul issue per se - the problem arises when thousands of users try to use a very small amount of RF spectrum in a very small space, all at the same time.
 
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