AT&T closer to having a 7.2mbps network
by Justin Horn on Jan 5th, 2010 @ 4:41 pmAT&T announced way back in September of 2009 that they would cranking up their mobile network speeds to 7.2mbps in 6 select cites (Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston) by the end of the year. Since the New Year I still am getting about 1.5-2.0 mbps on average so I decided to start asking around. Calling AT&T was pointless as the rep I talked to didn’t really know anything about it and told me to call Apple to find out why I wasn’t getting the full speed…so that was a dead end.
I then hit up AT&T on their Facebook page yesterday and got a friendly no answer:
Hey Justin, will take this up with the network team and try to get you an answer…its complicated stuff…may take a little while to nail this down…hang in there!
About 24 hours later I was still in the dark and just going with my gut feeling I posted to the same Facebook thread:
I assume that it hasn’t been turned on just yet, or it’s going on tower by tower and the towers I’m hitting don’t support it yet.
Turns out my gut feeling was correct. AT&T just put out a press release on the issue announcing the completion of the 7.2 tower software update for the entire nation and backhaul build out for the special cities:
In addition to the HSPA 7.2 software, initial deployment of backhaul is already underway in the six U.S. cities announced in 2009 as initial HSPA 7.2 markets – Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami, with capabilities being turned up on a site-by-site basis beginning last month.
The software upgrade being complete does explain why I’ve been getting a more consistent faster speeds, but nothing over 2.5mbps. So I guess I just have to wait until they beef up the bandwidth at the towers in my neighborhood, but at least I shouldn’t be waiting too much longer compared to the rest of you suckers not in the 6 magic cities! 
Follow me on Twitter @justin_horn
Recent Post
- More details on the iPad mini new multitouch feature
- iPad Mini predictions
- Zune still the butt of jokes, this time on the Simpsons
- AT&T LTE No Service: Too many LTE iPhone 5 users?
- iPhone 5 cellular usage while on WIFI bug affects AT&T users as well
- Tim Cook responds to iOS 6 Map app issues in public letter
- iPhone 5 screen vs iPhone 4: Really close up
- iPhone 5 line at 5th Ave Apple Store (Updated 11PM)
Featured Post
Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
