AT&T plans to double wireless broadband speeds by 2011

AT&T announced Wednesday plans to double the speed of its wireless broadband network by 2011. The move to HSPA technology, and eventually LTE networks, will begin later this year.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson outlined the carrier's plans at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif. "We are going to go ahead and deploy some rather aggressive wireless broadband," Stephenson said.

HSPA, which stand for High Speed Packet Access, is the next evolution in the carrier's 3G wireless broadband network. Though it promises peak data speeds of 7.2Mbps, slower speeds will be more likely in real-world use. AT&T's current UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) network tops out at 3.6Mpbs.

The nation's second largest carrier also announced that the move to HSPA will allow it to begin testing its LTE technology for an initial deployment in 2011. LTE (Long-Term Evolution), which Verizon has also adopted, is a 4G technology that promises peak download speeds of at least 50Mbps.

The upgrade to HSPA is one of a series of initiatives that AT&T unveiled this week. The carrier also plans to expand coverage of the GSM 850 band, deploy 2,100 new cell sites across the country, and add 20 new 3G markets for a total of 370. What's more, the carrier promised to increase Wi-Fi coverage so that smartphone and laptop cards will be able to switch seamlessly between Wi-Fi and the cellular network.

[rad91]

What am I missing. AT&T's short term goal is 7.2mbps, and verizon is 50mbps. Is AT&T really that far behind? Is verizon's goal likely to be met far in the future? Is there something technical I don't understand?

[gerrrg]

I believe they're both headed down the LTE path, so AT&T is after the same goal, but taking a middle step along the way to LTE, via HSPA/HSDPA first. Since both are talking about LTE next year and beyond, they're not exactly that off from each other.

[Jenkster25]

Verizon has 700MHz spectrum to blast it's new network across.
AT&T does not.

[Rafeekey28]

@ Jenkster25. hop off of verizon's jock. u obviously must have your head stuck in their ******* otherwise you would know that at&t also won the 700 MHz analog spectrum. verizon bought the C-Block which has restrictions on it and will cause verizon to have a open-access network, something they have tried hard to avoid all these years and at&t bought the B-Block and some of the C-Block from aloha. so do your research before you leave your stupid biased comments.

[mdvx]

Verizon 50mbps FIOS is a fiber optic fixed 'wire' network, here AT&T are talking about a Cellular network.

[Jenkster25]

@Rafeeky28.

I'm an AT&T customer. So how about you take your pills and calm your ass down.
As you said, Verizon got the lion's share of the C Block which means they have far more bandwidth to push their network through. I think you are a little confused about the blocks. ATT, getting the B-Block means that they bought a "guard block." That means that they will be under higher regulatory restrictions as far as the use of that block because it's frequencies boarder on other uses.
See: http://gigaom.com/2007/03/14/700mhz-explained/

Have fun with your research. And next time you want to call someone biased to Verizon, check and see if they aren't an ATT customer...

[gb1288]

Verizon is jumping on at&t back to save them from the enevitabble domination of LTE. LTE is a GSM platform which Verizon doesnt have. That means a ground up rebuild of theor towers. During the Cingular wireless and at&t merger they went throguh this painful rebuild of their towers losing a lot of customers due to the huge interuption in coverage. As is at&t data speeds are 35% plus faster than Verizon top end 3G speeds, untill both companies move to LTE at&t is doubleing its data speed even higher to 7.2 mbps. Look forward to a huge mess for Verizon to switch to GSM for LTE, were talking new phones, tower geography, rebulids ect. It's Ironic Verizon says it has the best network but is switching to at&t's GSM technology.

[MadLyb]

My area is still on EDGE, and when I *am* on a 3G network, I rarely see more than 1 Mbps, so color me extremely skeptical.

Of course, doubling 1 Mbps would be easy for them. 8^P

I think we need to approach ISP bandwidth from a different direction and instead of talking about theorectical maximums based on perfect network topologies, we instead price against a guaranteed minimum with a clear SLA.

[U. Tripps]

Good idea, except I think that would come with a signficant service price increase.

[Justin8888]

It'll still be nowhere near as good as Verizon

[Chapmaniac]

I'm glad all the money I give to AT&T each month is helping them make more money by increasing bandwidth on a data plan I can't even afford now...

[iPhoneUser]

it's a simple formula all the telecoms use:

2x data increase = 20x price increase

[U. Tripps]

This sounds like a too little, too late plan to encourage Apple to stay exclusively with them. AT&T without exclusive rights to the iPhone is a scary proposition for shareholders.

[JMAitken]

It would be nice if AT&T would Double the COVERAGE of their network before they worried about the Speed issue. I still drop calls daily in DC! (And no, not just next to the Pentagon, CIA or NSA buildings)

VA DOT could post a 100mph speed limit on 66 - but you aren't going to get any more cars down the highway!

[setjeff15081947]

Sounds like "Vapor-Ware" to me. Cellular? Wi-Fi? Yeah, they work fine, most of the time. But, when they become cranky, there's nothing to do but wait it out. Power outages render both quite useless. I believe I'll keep my clunky land-line and DSL a wee bit longer.

[iPhoneUser]

wow, a whopping 7.2 mbps...yawn. they're already at 50 mbps in other countries like china, japan, and russia. you're telling me i have to wait 2 more years just so we're where we should be today? pathetic.

[gb1288]

Its called the FCC which china, japan, and russia don't have to deal with. Ever wonder why your phone works so well in Mexico? I'll give you a hint, it has somethign to do with their kids having 3 eyes.

[clynx]

All of this is a waist of my money if it has the censorship practices of data caps. The emphasis needs to be on capacity not speed. Data caps=censorship, just like China here soon just a different topic being censored.

[MooseBoys]

Really what's the point if it still takes 5 seconds to sync up every time before content can even be requested? Someone wake me up when we get always-on networking for mobile devices...

[dirtwise]

I get a chuckle out of all you people living in the big city and don't have access to affordable high speed internet. Here in western minnesota which some people might call "the sticks" we have a small telephone company which is a cooperative. And guess what? they installed fiber optic lines to everyones house for no additional cost to us.I pay about 100 per month for internet and long distance package. Our rates have never gone up in the ten years we have lived here. And the internet speeds are amazing. I can watch real time video with no lag. No lie. And the best part? Because it is a cooperative, we get a dividend check every March for between 500-1000 dollars.

[danno321s]

WiMax has AT&T scared.

[Jenkster25]

I'm not sure about that. WiMax is scared of getting dropped by Sprint because of a shaky test rollout and Sprint's uncertain financial future. Much of that projects future seems hinged on the Pre.

[nomiri_alex]

ATT has a very long way to go regarding coverage and service. Wanting to get an iphone last year, I switched to ATT from Sprint. I am in the DC Metro Area. The service was horrible, the phone was working on edge all the time, and the few times that it was switching to the higher speed network, the voice quality was bad, and the phone always ended up getting disconnected. I thought, I had gone back in time to 1998 rather than 2008. I promptly returned my iphone and I am a happy sprint customer. So, until ATT invests in some serious infrastructure, and fixes their network, their press release are just smoke screens.

Rafeekey28 -- Dude, learn some manners.

[jonathan0766]

AT&T & Verizon are essentially government sanctioned utility monopolies. I suppose one shouldn't expect much from a market where it's almost impossible to compete (laying fiber anywhere in this country is nearly impossible unless you're one of the majors, similar to trying to start a new railroad company - entrenched right of way land use and agreements; and the spectrum is hyper regulated so you have to spend billions at auction just to enter a market).

On the up side, the internet is a private system with 99.999% uptime that the government doesn't have to bailout and it's always on (see: the argument for why taxes are supposedly necessary to pay for roads, and compare it to the private internet that is 100 times more complex and doesn't need taxes to support it), and consumer bandwidth speeds have gone up 100 fold in 10 to 12 years in most places.

[danno321s]

Clearwire has control on the needed spectrum for WiMax across the whole USA. They did their homework so now it is just a matter of funding the roll out. It will be slow going until the economy turns the corner to the upside. And that applies to the Telecos too; private capital is scarce.

[socrates85]

Verizon would be a good investment, if their phones weren't program to freeze, once to twice a week.