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.
Maggie Reardon joins the show today. We talk about the impending world pandemic of swine flu. "Mean-Jeans Maggie" gives us the inside scoop from a NYU professor who thinks that the virus could be really bad in the fall. From now on, we're wearing face masks in the podcast studio.
(Credit:
Wilson G. Tang/CNET)
Meanwhile, Amazon.com is trying to cash in on the fearmongering by offering a $25 dollar "Pandemic Swine Flu First Aid and Safety Kit." It's a couple of respirator masks, a pair of safety goggles, gloves, hand sanitizer, and booties. Yeah, you can pick up most of this stuff from your corner hardware or drug store for the cheap.
Also, a fan of the show turns Wilson into a "ce-web-rity" by adding him to a list of celebrities you can punch on Facebook. He cries in a corner today. Hopefully, you won't find Wilson on the roof of the CBS building any time soon.
Finally, we get in-depth about the possibility of the iPhone coming to the Verizon network. Neither Wilson nor Maggie thinks this will be a possibility in the near future. We think it's a ploy by Apple to get a better deal with AT&T. There is a chance the iPhone will appear on the Verizon network, when the company switches over to the LTE 4G standard.
Send in your comments to the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Call us at 1-866-404-CNET (2638). We'll try not to catch the swine flu, but it maybe can't be helped, as Justin loves licking subway poles.
EPISODE 329
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Several more companies on Monday agreed to sign their names to the Long Term Evolution (LTE) framework for the next generation of wireless technology.
The largest handset maker in the world, Nokia, was joined by Sony Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, and NextWave Wireless. Part of the agreement on LTE means the companies will agree to license their patents "on fair and reasonable terms," which means keeping royalties for handset patents below 10 percent of the handset sale price.
"Today's announcement is a step towards establishing more predictable and transparent licensing costs in a manner that enables faster adoption of new technologies," Nokia's Ilkka Rahnasto said in a statement.
These five are only the latest to join as the emerging LTE technology gains momentum. In November at the Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, the GSM Association threw its support behind LTE. A few weeks later, Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 wireless operator in the U.S., said it would use LTE for its 4G wireless network. AT&T, the largest mobile operator in the U.S., also has indicated it will use LTE.
News.com's Marguerite Reardon contributed to this report.
Verizon Wireless is shaking up its technology plans for the second time this week.
Two days after the company announced plans to open its network to outside devices and applications, it announced plans to switch gears when it comes to future networking technology.
Verizon Communications and Vodafone, joint owners of Verizon Wireless, plan to use the LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard backed by GSM industry players rather than the UMB (ultramobile broadband) standard backed by Verizon's current partners.
There's a host of implications for the industry, but for the phone user, the impact is simple. Right now, if you're a Verizon or Sprint customer, and you want to travel to many parts of the world, you'll have to get a rental, if you want to make calls while you're there. The move toward LTE would bring Verizon into the GSM world and enable travelers to use their phones around the world (for a hefty fee, of course).
In some ways, the move makes a lot of sense, and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg hinted that this was coming a few months ago.
The GSM family of standards is used by about 80 percent of the world's mobile phones--and by major carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and virtually every other European carrier. If Vodafone is already planning to head down the LTE path for its own networks, it's natural that Vodafone would nudge its subsidiary down a similar path so they could share expertise and get better deals on equipment from companies like Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel Networks.
But Verizon currently uses the CDMA (code division multiple access) standard for its networks. CDMA is used by Sprint, and it's popular in Asia. It's also controlled by Qualcomm, which owns patents on the CDMA technology and runs a very lucrative business in licensing that technology to carriers and phone makers.
This is going to take years to play out. Don't expect to see LTE networks and phones for at least two to three years, said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. All Verizon said on Thursday is that, along with Vodafone, it plans to start testing the LTE equipment in 2008.
But if the companies follow through with plans to deploy the LTE networks, it could be a blow to Qualcomm's future business. Sprint's 4G plans are very much up in the air. It had originally announced its intention to use WiMax technology for its 4G network, but after sacking CEO Gary Forsee, the company is re-evaluating its plans.
At peak rates (which are rarely reached in the real world), LTE networks will let you download data at a whopping 100 megabits per second, compared to the 1Mbps or so that you'll get from a 3G EV-DO connection on Verizon's network at the moment, or a 1.5Mbps DSL connection at home.
In a press release announcing its decision, Verizon noted that this type of bandwidth won't just be for cell phones. "Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers, such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products."
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