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AT&T also unveiled A-List with Rollover plan for current customers

Faster data speeds are always in demand from customers on all sorts of networks. Consumers want faster downloads at home from their broadband connections and more speed from their mobile connections as well.

AT&T has announced that it will be rolling HSPA 7.2 connectivity out to six major cities this year as well as adding more backhaul capability to make its network faster and more stable for users. The six major cities that will be getting HSPA 7.2 connectivity include Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami.

AT&T reports that initial connectivity will be available in these cities by the end of the year. In all, AT&T plans to have HSPA 7.2 in 30 of the nation's largest markets  by the end of 2010 while aiming to reach 90% of the existing 3G network footprint by the end of 2011. AT&T points out that the upgrades to the network provide a theoretical peak speed of 7.2Mbps and that real world speeds will vary depending on location, network traffic, and the device used.

"Our deployment of HSPA 7.2 and supporting backhaul connectivity will enable our customers to continue to ride the leading edge of emerging devices and thousands of mobile applications," said John Stankey, president and CEO, AT&T Operations. "Our network is based on the predominant technology platform used by operators worldwide and has been tested by today's most popular devices. That experience gives us an important advantage in developing and deploying new technologies to meet customers' future needs."

Users will need a new device to take advantage of the HSPA 7.2 speeds and AT&T reports that it will have at least six handsets in its portfolio along with two new laptop cards by the end of the year. The new backhaul capacity will add thousands of new connections to support not only HSPA 7.2, but 4G LTE as well. AT&T still plans to introduce 4G LTE starting in 2010 with full deployment in 2011. Hopefully, the additional backhaul capability will help the network woes that most iPhone users experience and shore the network up for bandwidth consuming features like iPhone MMS.

AT&T also announced a new A-List with Rollover that allows unlimited calling to and from any five VIP domestic numbers at no additional coast. Families with up to ten lines on FamilyTalk plans can take advantage of the A-List service as well. A-List will debut on September 20 and customers can manage their list online.

AT&T users on $59.99 or higher plans will get A-List with rollover for up to five domestic numbers and FamilyTalk customers on plans of $89.99 or more can get ten numbers in their A-list. The numbers can be mobile or landline numbers.

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Amazing...
By StevoLincolnite on 9/9/2009 12:22:22 PM , Rating: 3
The USA is way behind the ball when it comes to there 3G networks it's not funny.

Yesterday I was complaining to my neighbour that I was only getting about 14mbps on my 3G connection through Telstra here in Australia. (Peaks at 21mbps).

And soon we will have 42Mbps.

Unfortunately 3G is a shared medium, so speeds degrade the more users are accessing it, still I only use a 3G connection as back-up/on-the-road internet connection.

The question begs, is America's 3G networks not very competitive with each other? I could imagine there profit margins would be larger than what Telstra would get here, and have a much larger customer base to fight over as well.




RE: Amazing...
By kevinkreiser on 9/9/2009 12:36:10 PM , Rating: 2
you're joking right? you were upset at 14mbps from a cell tower? where i live, in central pa, there are only edge towers at best. cities have 3G but they are like 25 miles away at closest. even the cable service around here only offers sustained 6mbps, and there are a lot of places with out cable access at all. satallite is literally not an option, since it only offers 1mbps for 60$ per month (with horrible qos). if you are really getting speeds like you are saying, then you are very lucky my friend.


RE: Amazing...
By StevoLincolnite on 9/9/2009 12:59:46 PM , Rating: 2
No I'm not Joking, I live in a country area with a population of around 10,000 residents, thus there aren't many users accessing my particular tower, usually I can sit around the 19mbps - 20mbps mark without a hassle.

The network itself was built in only 10 months, and covers most of the continent, and thus 98% or more of the population, it's an extremely good network regarding Speeds and coverage.

It also uses the 850mhz band for a wider coverage, which is better than the 2100mhz band more commonly used by other providers which just doesn't penetrate buildings or reach as far.


RE: Amazing...
By 4wardtristan on 9/9/2009 8:06:32 PM , Rating: 2
telstra 3g/nextg is good

optus, on the other hand...


RE: Amazing...
By DOOA on 9/9/2009 12:51:43 PM , Rating: 2
We also have a pervasive 5G/month limit. To my knowledge all wireless carriers have it in one form or another. Going over this limit leads to usurious fees. No point in having a fast connection with that low limit.
When the American auto industry had poor quality only competition from Japan forced a change. Hopefully competition will save the day again although I don't see exactly how as there cannot be foreign competition.


RE: Amazing...
By StevoLincolnite on 9/9/2009 1:11:21 PM , Rating: 2
Download limits are the Norm here, we have Limits on our 3G connections ranging from 200 megabytes to 10gb and beyond, but expect to pay for the larger quotas.

However because of 3g's relatively limited bandwidth, and the amount of users that can access the same connection at the one time, it's probably the best approach to reduce costs for the provider and increase performance for all the end users as well by having Data Caps. (Even if you don't like them, it probably does help your connection speed considerably).

For instance, I would hate to be on a 3G connection only to have 5000 people torrenting at the same time at maximum speeds.

Personally I see 3G internet as a supplement to your Home/work ADSL/Fiber connection, not something to entirely replace it, and gaming on a 3G connection clearly places you at a disadvantage in an FPS shooter because of the increased latency, so it's bad for gamers.

Luckily though, I have a Combined bundled offer where I have my ADSL 2+ connection at home, bundled with a fixed home phone line, and a 3G wireless broadband connection.

The good thing is that my Wireless broadband "Shares" my download limit with my ADSL 2+ fixed line internet connection, which works out well for me, as some months I might not use the 3G connection at all, while another month I might use it exclusively.


RE: Amazing...
By JediJeb on 9/9/2009 5:16:01 PM , Rating: 2
But would gaming over the 3G be better for me than my 56k dialup connection? This is something I am considering since that is the only option I have right now for internet and my best connection on it so far is 46k with 45.2k as the norm. I can get good cell reception where I am but never knew how EDGE and 3G compare to the dialup connection as far as speed goes so I never bought a data plan on my cellphone. There are probably not much over 100 people in range of my closest tower so I doubt there would be much competition for bandwidth.


RE: Amazing...
By HrilL on 9/9/2009 6:25:47 PM , Rating: 2
It would be a lot better imo. Depending on the game you're playing. Average ping on 56k for me was about 200-250ms and my average ping on 3G was about 130-170ms. plus I was getting a decent average download speed of 50KB/s or around 400Kb/s so that's about 10x faster than your 56k connection. Make sure you get 3G coverage before you make the switch as edge would be about on par with your 56K even though it has a faster max theoretical speed of 384Kbs/s the fastest I've seen mine go was around 200Kb/s and average is around 60-70Kb/s or about 7-10KB/s. Latency was about 200-300ms so about the same as 56k and sometimes worse. It jumps around a lot more than 56k did. I am comparing playing counter-strike on both connections. Overall everything was better on 3G then 56k for me.


RE: Amazing...
By StevoLincolnite on 9/10/2009 1:50:20 AM , Rating: 2
Depends, there are many factors which influence 3G latency and bandwidth speeds.

The farther away from the tower, the slower the speed gets and the higher your latency gets from the attenuation.

However, it would still more than likely be a vast improvement over dial-up in any case, especially in games which use extensive use of Voice chat features. (Like Xbox Live! ).

Plus downloading Updates/Game Addons/Mods will be a much more pleasurable experience on 3G over Dial-up.

In your situation, I wouldn't think twice about it.


RE: Amazing...
By JediJeb on 9/10/2009 11:43:35 AM , Rating: 2
Thanks for the information. Mostly I am playing Star Wars Galaxies and my ping is running in the 300ms range until I get in an area with a lot of other players then it can hit over a second. Nearest tower is about a mile away, but I will need to see if it is 3G. Right now voice chat in game is a no go, because it gets to where what I see on screen is about 10 seconds or more behind what is happening in game. I had wondered what the speeds would be but never could find any good examples.


RE: Amazing...
By cboath on 9/9/2009 5:56:20 PM , Rating: 2
My home connection is only 12 (carries fastest is 16) and I have no complaints about speed on anything. What could you possibly be complaining to your neighbor about at 14?

Still, it's disgusting to know you can get that speed on wireless/3G and I can't hit 20 on cable at the house here.


RE: Amazing...
By Camikazi on 9/9/2009 8:36:37 PM , Rating: 2
It's easy to complain about 14 when you can and do get 21, very easy in fact. If they are used to 21 then getting 14 will be annoying for them.


RE: Amazing...
By StevoLincolnite on 9/10/2009 2:03:00 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
What could you possibly be complaining to your neighbor about at 14?


Because I am used to at-least 40% faster speeds on my 3G connection?
Plus we were talking about how expensive ADSL 2+ is, when we are both 3km's from the exchange and can barely hit 8mbps, yet pay 5 times the price, in comparison to the 3G connections.

quote:
Still, it's disgusting to know you can get that speed on wireless/3G and I can't hit 20 on cable at the house here.


The Network itself is great, It's the fastest 3G network in the world, and also the largest in-terms of coverage of land-mass, however we have had to put up with sub-par speeds and prices with fixed-line connections for far far to long, so they both balance each other out.

On the bright side, the Government here is rolling out a 100mbps National Fiber Broadband network to the Majority of Australians, which I honestly can't wait to sink my teeth in to.

Competition in Internet Providers and Infrastructure hasn't worked in America, perhaps there isn't enough regulation, or there are anti-competitive practices going on?

Although our 3G network built by Telstra wasn't funded or built by the government, and competition has been minimal as well for the Telco, perhaps that's regulation working? I don't know..
I know for a fact the government had regulations in place to "Force" Telstra to roll out it's 3G network in country areas to replace the CDMA network that it had originally, otherwise it wasn't allowed to shut it's CDMA network down, that is probably one aspect where I am glad the government stepped in and told the company what it had to do, otherwise consumers would be missing out here, and the network probably wouldn't have been built in a record 10 months, and would more than likely have had sub par speeds.


RE: Amazing...
By anandtech02148 on 9/11/2009 8:49:04 PM , Rating: 1
No wonder americans are getting the swine flu, these greedy capitalist pigs should all die from this planet.
But yeah..in Boston my Iphone gets around 400kb down/100k up, but some times it feels like 56k down and 20kup.
We call it 3G. Then again Australia doesn't have millions of fat american pigs hogging the bandwith on a 1 day juiced iphone. why do i hear 3MB-3.5MBdl for 3G, is there such thing? currently i pay $79usd a month for my airspace, american cellular companies has other plans for me, i can't hardly wait.


He must be joking.
By Shadowself on 9/9/2009 12:51:07 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
"Our deployment of HSPA 7.2 and supporting backhaul connectivity will enable our customers to continue to ride the leading edge of emerging devices and thousands of mobile applications," said John Stankey, president and CEO, AT&T Operations.


He's joking, right? Having 7.2 Mbps in six cities this year and only 24 more cities by the end of 2010 while another wireless vendor is already starting to deploy 4G in the U.S. in 2009 does not sound like "leading edge" to me.




RE: He must be joking.
By AlexWade on 9/9/2009 1:06:12 PM , Rating: 2
I agree.

Please AT&T, get 3G to EVERYONE first, then upgrade. Or, get HSPA to EVERYONE. Just quit acting like people only live in big cities.

(By the way, I stick with AT&T because I have a great rate plan. This does not imply I have dropped calls; I don't. I stick with AT&T because of the killer rate plan I have.)


By T2k on 9/9/2009 1:53:52 PM , Rating: 1
Seriously: AT&T is such an UTTER LYING PoS company that's not even funny anymore - they are the MOST DISGUSTING PROVIDER of ALL TIME, with the SHITTIEST 3G NETWORK EVER yet THEY ARE THE MOST EXPENSIVE service.

Why, WHY PEOPLE KEEP FEEDING THIS PoS CORPORATION???




By Mgz on 9/9/2009 9:01:48 PM , Rating: 2
they have cookie, candy and iphone


By the way...
By noirsoft on 9/9/2009 12:57:16 PM , Rating: 2
You might want to mention _who_ is rolling out these services in the title of the article. Right now, it just begins with "Announces..."

This comment will be rendered obsolete if/when the article is changed.




at&t a-list...
By queuetrip on 9/9/2009 2:40:02 PM , Rating: 2
a-list for at&t;
my five for rogers;

i want to be on the a-team....




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