O.C., L.A. among first to get AT&T’s faster mobile broadband
September 9th, 2009, 3:07 pm · 11 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Finally! AT&T confirms that Orange County (and Los Angeles) will be one of six regions nationwide to get faster mobile Internet before the end of the year.
The other five regions are Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Miami. (See earlier mention from May, ”7.2 Mbps Internet speeds coming to AT&T mobile this year.“)
The company doesn’t link the upgrade to negative reports from iPhone users. But AT&T mentions in a press release that its wireless traffic has quadrupled in the past year, and the upgrade is just “part of AT&T’s ongoing efforts to drive innovation and investment to lead the industry in delivering the benefits of smartphones and mobile broadband for customers.”
iPhone and other AT&T smartphone users can look forward to faster Internet, with speeds up to 7.2 megabits per second. That’s faster than some home broadband service.
But this isn’t the next generation 4G service being tested by Verizon and Sprint in other parts of the country. This is High Speed Packet Access 7.2, sometimes called Turbo 3G. AT&T’s plans to begin testing 4G (using Long Term Evolution technology, or LTE) next year and will offer 4G service in 2011.
HSPA requires a software upgrade. This is supported by souped-up cell sites, which are being linked by fiber-optic cables for to improve speeds. HSPA is expected to be the fastest mobile broadband offered by any wireless company this year, said AT&T.
Theoretical speeds hit 7.2 mbps but that is with ideal conditions and usually in a lab. In reality, expect something slower. Just like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other wireless technologies, HSPA speeds are affected by location, the device and overall traffic on the wireless network.
AT&T plans to roll out the faster HSPA service to the rest of the nation by the end of 2010. By the end of 2011, 90 percent of its existing 3G network will get the HSPA boost. As part of the launch, AT&T will offer six compatible smartphones plus two new LaptopConnect cards.
Recent 3G and 4G news:
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So I can burn through my 5 GB cap in less than an hour?
5GB “Unlimited” with limits.
I don’t know about ATT HSPA but for Sprint 4G (which includes 3G), they only impose the 5G cap on the 3G side. Sprint’s 4G side is 10Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up yo (theoretical max) and it’s run by Clearwire using WiMax tech. (You can buy just the WiMax side cheaper from Clear dot com, but that does you no good in areas like OC where they currently “only” have 3G, albeit very good 3G –though apparently soon to be smoked by AT&T 3G.) I know a lot of this has to do with CDMA tech being much better than GSM –CDMA is invented in California by Qualcomm down in San Diego, GSM notsomuch… and although the entire world uses GSM, who cares? (cheaper to buy a disposable phone while traveling and call-forward your American cell phone to it anyway) It’s just that the only options for CDMA now are pretty much Sprint, Cricket, MetroPCS and Verizon.
I just wish I had any ATT service at my house and office. No bars at home, 1-2 bars in the office while my Verizon friends talk away…..
I have an iPhone 3GS and the problem with AT&T mobile broadband is that reception is terrible in crowded areas; for example at sports stadiums or events like the OC Fair. I rarely had this problem when I used to have T-Mobile. So I don’t care if AT&T is going to double or quadruple the broadband speed.. it doesn’t matter when I don’t get any reception at all. I just want a “decent” speed with a -reliable- data connection when I go to an event with more than a few thousand people.
Everyone that calls me from an AT&T Wireless phone always gets disconnected multiple times during the conversation, Verizon never. I do wish I could get U Verse however, that is an awesome service but requires specific hardware in the neighborhood that so far has not been installed. C’mon AT&T put some people to work!
I hope it is faster then the AT&T Internet that I have now. I would go back to cable if we ever get a cable company that you can depend on.
caseclosed: You must not be in an area “served” by COX. They’re known to not even enable the encryption flag on their head-end devices and modems so that hackers can sit in their mother’s basement and record all the packets in the neighborhood. They also are known to “stuff” the files of what they consider to be trouble maker customers and build on that each time they call in so it looks like there is a long history of problems…they even do it to very old ladies who order service and then call up and tell them to cancel when they don’t show up as originally planned (call back and ask the new agent to read back the explanation the notes say were given). They will print checks and deposit them to your bank and if they bounce will roll the balance forward to another check and keep doing that (it’s how they get around bank restriction on redepositing the same check more than twice, which is there because it’s illegal to fry someone’s checking account by redepositing over and over again). If you have service with them for, lets say, the entire history of their company (since they bought out Time) and then you get into it with them over the last month’s bill, six months later they will send you to a collection agency with instructions to trash your credit even if you pay them. If you bring up the 20+ year history they will just tell you that you were warned during all the detailed notes they see on your file. Oh, and of course, the “cable guys” are not bonded and often not even bondable. Walk an elderly woman into the lobby to apply for cable and pickup her box (so as to save her the huge installation fee) and the 45 year old cable guy assumes you’re related and starts talking about how he lives with his parents too! Cause any trouble like the young (obviously well educated and justifiably upset) Indian couple who are questioning why they are being billed charges that they did not agree to and some folks who look like they were hired from the DMV will come down and get involved. Late on your bill? How about having a robo dialer call you up to remind you just in case you forgot? SBC/AT&T is not perfect, but it’s far from that dark comedy and with services like Hulu.com and all the major TV and cable channels live-streaming now, you don’t really need cable unless you are more comfortable operating a TV than a computer (ie, you are an older person or you are so affluent, for the time being, that you can afford to not deal with this stuff)…looking forward to the day when their AT&T Uverse product dominates with 10,000 channels and little kids grow up asking what that weird wall outlet was for behind the TV.
My comment is still being moderated but other comments were approved. So I’ll re-phrase it. I wish that AT&T would stop focusing on higher speeds and instead just get the data network to be reliable in the first place. Because whenever I go to a sporting event or someplace with more than a few thousand people (such as the OC Fair), I have data reception problems on my iPhone 3GS. I would like to ask AT&T what is the use of higher speeds when it stops working at large public events that saturate the phone network? I didn’t have this problem with T-Mobile.
The upgrades to the faster connection will also mean higher capacity and reliability.
I agree- it’s very common at sports stadiums, fairs, etc for me to get 5 bars of signal strength with the iPhone but no data connection. It renders services like MLB At Bat useless when part of the appeal is to be able to see instant replays, stats, etc when you are attending the game. So I also hope they concentrate on using this added bandwidth to support more simultaneous connections