Why AT&T Is Dragging Its Feet On LTE Deployment
Posted Under: Mobile
jkOnTheRun posted an interesting commentary in the race for LTE. Previously, we had reported that Verizon Wireless had upped the ante and is now rolling out LTE ahead of schedule in 2009 rather than wait for 2010. Well, just recently, AT&T announced that it will begin trials of a 7.2 Mbps HSPA deployment, which will occur in Chicago first. So what does all that tech mumbo-jumbo mean?
HSPA is a third generation (3G) wireless protocol. Moving forward, companies are adopting fourth generation (4G) wireless protocols such as WiMax or LTE, that will give users theoretical speeds that will be quicker and faster than 3G upon launch (real world use will vary based on a variety of things from network connection, number of users on the network, proximity to towers, network speeds, etc). According to jkOnTheRun, AT&T can afford to wait to deploy LTE because there is room to grow in the HSPA standard that it had adopted for 3G (versus Verizon’s 3G standard which is CDMA-EVDO):
“AT&Ts approach is more of the slow and steady approach and they can afford to do that because their HSPA network still has speed to burn. Although real-world usage will likely be half of the maximum throughput, the carrier is testing speeds up to 7.2 Mbps in Chicago now. Even at half-speed, accounting for overhead and other issues, 3.6 Mbps is close to what WiMAX offers now. If nothing else, its comparable enough and can probably be rolled out nationwide quicker than WiMAX.”
On the other hand, Verizon is at the end of its road with EVDO Revision A. According to jkOnTheRun: “EV-DO Rev. A technology is maxxed out. They could transition to Rev. B but by the time they even got that going in a meaningful, it would be time to start re-transitioning to LTE.”
Whether all this is a blessing or a curse for gadget lovers on AT&T who must have the latest and greatest remains unseen. On one hand, equipment you purchased today may still be forward-compatible or another year with the faster 7.2 Mbps 3G upgrade. On the other hand, you won’t be the first on the block to boast about 4G.
