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Posting call for an experience LTE engineer to operate locally

AT&T, Inc. (T) has the nation's fastest LTE network, but it's badly lagging behind Verizon Wireless, the joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Vodafone Group Plc. (LON:VOD) in coverage.  

AT&T's LTE network covers 70 million Americans in the following cities -- Las Vegas, NV; Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; Kansas City, MO; Chicago, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Atlanta and Athens, GA; Charlotte, NC; Baltimore, MD; Washington D.C.; San Juan, PR; and Boston, MA.  Verizon covers far more cities with its LTE network, which covers 210 million Americans.

Recent job postings indicate that AT&T is preparing for an LTE rollout in the metro-Detroit and metro-Minneapolis areas.

The postings, found on the site "Employment Guide" call for a "AT&T Professional RAN Engineer- RF Engineer IV".  Originally the word "LTE" was tacked onto the title, but the descriptions appear to be edited (versus the results in Google) for subtlety.  

It's reasonably obvious from the responsibility description, though, that the applicant's purpose, should they get the job, will be to manage an LTE rollout.  For example, the description reads:

Support capacity planning (update RFDS installation diagrams for GSM, UMTS, LTE for increased site capacity while maintaining coverage and quality).
...
Create RF designs for technology roll-out (UMTS, LTE) in new areas, use design tools to achieve design quality metrics.

The Minnesota job is viewable here (for now) and the Detroit job (out of Farmington Hills) can be found here.  Both jobs were posted on Tuesday, Dec. 27.

_{AT&T has only deployed LTE to a handful of cities, thus far [the orange dots].}

Additional sales consultant jobs were posted for San Francisco, CA [here] and New York City, NY [here].  These jobs also hint at new 2012 LTE deployments, in that they ask for LTE sales experience.  However, asking for a sales person to have this experience could be more of a sign for long term preparation, versus the network jobs which hint at immediate deployment.

One advantage AT&T has over Verizon is its increasingly popular Uverse cable service.  Uverse offers a much cheaper premium cable package than Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) and subscribers can get a bundled discount on smartphone plans.

Source: Employment Guide