Raising The Bar - AT&T’s LTE Comes to Five Cities This Summer

Just in time to cure our blues from thoughts of being without a new iPhone 5 this summer, AT&T announced today its new 4G network, with the addition of LTE, will be released in five markets this summer – Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and San Antonio.

AT&T hopes to add another 10 markets and cover more than 70 million Americans with this new network by the end of year. To sweeten the deal, AT&T plans to add 20 4G devices to its offerings as well.

Just last fall, Verizon Wireless launched its LTE networks in dozens of cities. The company said the service offers download speeds of up to 12Mbps and uploads of up to 5Mbps. Lab tests show AT&T’s LTE rates offer double the speed of Verizon’s advertised rates with  28.87 Mbps download speeds. A little healthy competition, perhaps?

AT&T’s Chief Technology Officer, John Donovan, posted a blog on AT&T’s Innovation Space about the LTE launch.

AT&T's 4G Evolution
Dallas, Texas, May 25, 2011 

AT&T has delivered five mobile broadband speed upgrades in recent years, including our HSPA+ deployment last year. And average nationwide speeds on the AT&T network have increased – more than 40 percent over the past two years alone.

The next network evolution will arrive this summer with the addition of LTE in five markets – Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and San Antonio. We plan to add another 10 or more markets in the second half of the year, and cover 70 million Americans with LTE by year-end. We also have plans to add 20 4G devices to our robust device portfolio this year, with some of those being LTE capable.

We're positioning to deliver a great mobile broadband experience in the near term with HSPA+ and a growing LTE footprint.

We've invested $75 billion in our wireless and wired networks over the last four years – more capital invested in the U.S. than any company in any industry. And we plan to invest $19 billion in our wireless and wireline networks and other capital projects this year. The investments we've made to evolve our mobile broadband network in recent years, plus what we have planned for the future, put our customers in position to benefit fully from a host of coming mobile broadband innovations.

Does this “real 4G” network mean less dropped calls and faster tweeting, AT&T? If so, this summer may be a great one! Hold on to your seats, boys and girls.