Remember, about six weeks ago, when I told you not to hold your breath about Verizon's promised 4G network, that it would be a while?
If you're placing bets on who's going to remain king of the cellular biz, put your money on AT&T. Not only are they planning to upgrade their 3G network, with a special boost for urban areas, they're also going to beat Verizon to the 4G punch by about a year. That's the prediction from my husband, Mr. Cell Phone.
AT&T today announced plans to upgrade the nations fastest 3G network to deliver considerably faster mobile broadband speeds. The network upgrades are slated to begin later this year, with completion expected in 2011.With its network built on the 3G UMTS technology that is commonly deployed throughout the world, AT&T can boost the speed of its mobile broadband network and offer a wide variety of devices to take advantage of it well in advance of 2011-2012, when most industry observers expect 4G LTE networks and device availability to scale. AT&T plans to begin LTE trials in 2010, with deployment beginning in 2011.
In addition to the planned speed upgrade, AT&T is enhancing its mobile broadband coverage by nearly doubling the wireless spectrum dedicated to 3G in most metropolitan areas to deliver stronger in-building reception and more overall network capacity. Also, AT&T is adding thousands of new cell site backhaul connections to support the higher mobile broadband speeds enabled by HSPA 7.2 and LTE.
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