At Mobile World Congress, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega had
mentioned to us that AT&T was "better off" than Verizon thanks to 3GPP Release 7's capabilities to extend existing HSPA infrastructure through to 21Mbps and beyond by using the wonders of HSPA+ before the company would need to bite the bullet and get moving on
LTE. We're not sure whether Big Red's
aggressive LTE plans have AT&T rethinking its strategy or if it just wants to save time, money, and energy by avoiding yet another interim rollout, but we're now being told by a company spokesman that "it's likely that timelines for LTE standards will lead us directly from 7.2 to LTE." He mentions that HSPA+ is "still an option," but at any rate, this is a markedly different tone than we've heard in the past --
even as late as last month -- and if this means we're getting LTE even a single day sooner, we're all for it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason Lackey @ May 27th 2009 3:57PM
I wonder how much of this change of course is related to rumors of the iPhone coming in LTE flavor to a certain North American Tier 1 CDMA carrier....
Scott @ May 27th 2009 6:08PM
Unless what we heard from Verizon is wrong (that Apple won't make a CDMA iPhone), then I don't see it coming to Verizon for a long time, considering that after LTE is acually up and running, they are suppose to be using it for data only and still CDMA for voice.
Frederick Rothe III @ Jun 6th 2009 8:56AM
I have at&t (using the phone as a modem) and the signal is HSDPA out here in the sticks upstate NY (take that T-Mobile!!),although it switches back to EDGE (2G to you techies). I do hope they boost the data speed because the most I can wring out of this phone (courtesy of the CNET bandwith meter widget from Yahoo!) is about 520kbps. Have unlimited data;no,I don't have a data connect plan,I just use the SE USB cable and use the phone as a modem,since out here we DO NOT HAVE BROADBAND!!! At least the phone comes reasonably close to broadband,but it still isn't Cable speeds,much less DSL.