AT&T: LTE 'Significantly Available' In 5 Years

AT&T's HSPA is, however, 3G as ratified by the standards body.

WiMax is not 4G (yet) and shouldn't be called 4G until such time as the 4G standards body has defined exactly what 4G means.

The argument that AT&T's network doesn't provide real world 3G speeds and so therefore isn't 3G is spurrious - Sprint and Verizon's 3G networks don't provide real world 3G speeds either. But all 3 networks conform to the 3G specification, and so are rightly called 3G networks.

So this is October 200!!!!8!!!! How much closer to 2010 does it have to be before we can get REAL broadband speeds, I'm lucky to get a burst of 2mbps, how much longer til we get 5,6,7mbps????????? 2009 is just around the corner!

How much do you want to pay ?
You can go WiFi and grab a 54Mbps 'G' hotspot 🤤 🤤 🤤

Wifi is way, way limited. Most places have secured networks, with the exception of libraries.

I prefer 3G because it's city wide! I pay $15/mo, and that's all I feel it's worth, due to the measly 1mbps, sometimes there a slight bursts.

ATT doesn't get more $ from me til speeds go ABOVE the 3mbps range. They're broadband connect certainly ISN'T worth $60/mo!!! Especially at the current speeds!!!

Perpetual constant...

I want it all and I don't want to pay anything for it.

I didn't say anything about free, just the dollar to speed ratio. How things work is the more people spend the more they expect, value!

And because wireless speeds aren't comparable to cable speeds I am holding off for real broadband.

Dollar to speed ratio.

lol @ the $15 comment. wireless speeds up to 1.5mbps (as you described) available almost ANYWHERE (in the major markets) is not the same as your 5mbps cable connection at home that you cant take with you.

apparently you have no earthly idea how much it costs to maintain and grow a national cellular network, let alone the backhaul and spectrum requirements needed to make 3G widely available.

I do know that wireless companies make 10s, and 10s of billions of dollars especially the gian that AT&T is, and here we are almost at the END of the decade, and they're holding back, the speeds that ATT puts out aren't worth the $60 a month they charge for broadband connect.

I hear in Europe, Germany I think it is, they're getting 7.2mbps.

first of all, your logic about the company's revenue is just as backwards as the idiots who get bent out of shape with the oil companies because their financials are measured in billions (with a B) instead of millions due to their sheer size. exxon, for example, only has a profit margin of about 8%. the big telcos are not much better when taken as whole company (wireless and wireline combined).

beyond that, it wasnt too long ago that EDGE cards and spotty coverage were the norm (2005), so to expect the cost to drop down to the $15 level you naively associate the speed with is just ridiculous product life cycle wise. the reason the $60 laptop cards have sold exceptionally well (and are up this year for AT&T almost 100% over last year's sal...
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Really? Seriously? Are you that torqued up to the point of name calling because someone else doesnt think AT&t's "broadband" speeds are worth 60.00 mo.?

There may be a less technical but equally compelling school of thought that says if a company advertises broadband speeds they should provide them. And if it happens to be unrealistic to expect these speeds maybe they shouldn't advertise as such. Surely you can understand this.

Name calling aside, all the carriers in the US call it mobile broadband. Flawed standard or not, they all meet about the same speeds here in the US which is considered broadband if over 640kbps on the downstream side. While range of deployment may vary, the speeds do not do so significantly and they all charge about the same $60 per month as well. And before someone brings up the $15 phone-as-modem charge from Sprint, that is ON TOP OF already having to have one of their handset data plans which essentially equals $60.

Jayshmay said:
2009 is just around the corner!

really? hows it look? All I have around the corner from me is Sears, Alltel and Victoria's Secret.

WiMax has been defined as 4G... how is it that everyone overlooked that article so conveniently?????


Its the same as watching the news and NOBODY, I mean NO BODY but Bill Maher has even referenced the fact that John McCain initially came out last February saying that he knew nothing about the economy, referring to himself as having been an expert on war. All these IDIOTS go on about how they trust him to turn around the economy... its kind of maddening in both situations.

And, technically, at&t is correct.

For years, the FCC definition of "broadband" was 200kbit/sec in one direction. It has since moved to 768kbit/sec as of March 2008.

I get about 1000kbps on UMTS network in the seattle area..

But it really does not matter if you get 800kbps or 400kbps on a choked network. The FCC is merely concerned about the PHY speed...which is multiple megabits.

And what is this talk about "not implementing 3G" ?? UMTS is a 3rd generation network. The specification simply states it just a mere 384kbps. Not a very lofty goal by any means. 🙄

It is debatable whether a wireless ethernet standard (WiFi, WiMax, etc) even deserves to be put in the same category as a real RAN technology. If that is the ...
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What the heck is "RAN technology"???


My definition of broadband is consisten speed of 3mbps and above, similar speeds that cable companies offer, except wireless, that's what I'm waiting for to get an aircard, 3mbps and above.

Sometime next year I'd like to get a mini notebook pc, but that depends on whether ATT decides to be more ambitious with they're HSPA network!!!

7.2Mbps capable cards exist today.
The network is 3.6Mbps capable on HSPA.
As long as AT&T keeps attempting to squeeze all 3G customers through a single 5MHz chunk of spectrum, service will never reach its potential.
I don't expect anything to get 'better' from AT&T before the end of the year. I've hammered on their tech support over this due to an absurd amount of dropped calls while on 3G. They don't plan to deploy more spectrum until December.

Sure the aircards are capable, but the network isn't capable. I go to Cnet's Bandwidth Test website and do speed tests, the highest I've ever gotten is 2379kbps. Not too bad, but that was a one time burst, more than twice the real world average speeds I get.

The words "real world" are very, very important, not advertised, not theoretically, only real world speeds matter.

So what is this that you heard about December??? You've got me curious!!!

RAN = Radio/Remote Area Network. Basically meaning that wireless ethernet aka wifi should not be considered in the same category as cellular service because it is still a localized technology.

Broadband doesn't necessarily mean cable.
DSL is considered broadband as well, and many areas are limited to 1.5Mbps.
The term broadband may actually be correct though, as UMTS/WCMDA uses a relatively 'wide' band of spectrum for deployment (5MHz), and is one of the issues causing problems.
I do agree though - AT&T's 3G sucks - coverage is decent, but dropped calls are horrible.

All these years I've been with Cingular/ATT I generally haven't had much of a problem with they're network, but recently, I've been having connection problems where I work, and my buddy works across the street from the Las Vegas convention center.

Sometimes when my data speeds suck on Dual Band mode on my phone, I switch to GSM (EDGE)and my connection gets a bit swifter.

I don't understand what you mentioned about 5mhz??? ATT's 3G network operates at 850/1900.

Jayshmay said:
I don't understand what you mentioned about 5mhz??? ATT's 3G network operates at 850/1900.

AT&T does operate in 850 & 1900 bands, but the frequencies for the license(s) they hold for a specific market are partitioned for GSM & UMTS use. For AT&T's 3G network, UMTS uses a 5mhz block each way. So they need 10mhz of paired spectrum just for WCDMA. In markets where AT&T only holds a 10mhz license, their network will only be GSM with maybe EDGE, but no UMTS.
So they need 20mhz or more just to run both GSM & UMTS. I don't know if I explained this correctly. But UMTS is a spectrum hog, compared to EVDO (which only uses 1.25mhz each way), which is used by CDMA carriers such as Verizon, Sprint,...
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It really depends on the area your in. If your in a larger city then your real world speeds will be slower than someone who is in a less populated area. The problem is you share with everyone else. So if there are a lot of people on the same towers its going to slow you down. Plus At&t uses burst speeds to help keep stress off the network so you don't have a constant speed. When you request a web page you speed up but when your idle on a page they slow down. The problem is it doesn't always speed up.

Real world speed I would say between 1.5 and 3mbps. Average would be 2mbps.

I don't have avg speeds of 2mbps, more like bursts of that speed. The avg I get is more like 1.1, 1.2mbps.

What I don't get though is I work nights, so there fore wouldn't you think I'd get faster speeds at night?

Well the problem is that at&t's 3g is its running of the 1900mhz band which all their calls go through. So until they fix that then you will still have issues. And I don't see them doing that when they are planning on rolling out LTE in 5 years

I would say if you switch carriers or put up with it for 5 years when they may roll it out.

ATT's voice and data network are seperate from each other. I can be on the phone and the internet at the same time.

True you can use the phone and data at the sametime but it all goes over the 1900mhz spectrum. That is the problem and why you are getting slow speeds.

Tmo Slave said:
True you can use the phone and data at the sametime but it all goes over the 1900mhz spectrum. That is the problem and why you are getting slow speeds.

And you know this for a fact? When I checked my phone through the service check it said 850umts. I'm not even sure you have or use AT&T and are just trolling? Or are you one of those people who's brothers girlfriends cousins boyfriend has it and he has problems. Your nick sorta gives it away.

At&t use both 850 and 1900. It depends on your area. At&t like all carriers are good for some people and horrible for others. Every carrier has something good to offer.

And yes I have used At&t before and their customer care reps are dumb.

TMO Slave,
Mileage varies on cs, I have had little problems, and actually its pretty good since I'm on Premier.

And yes, I happen to believe those who have problems, but, I haven't. Yes speeds vary between 900-1850kbs.

Again, wrong. They use both 850 and 1900 in the US and 900/1800/2100 overseas on their world capable phones. Data is typically 850/1900 in the US and 2100 overseas, particularly in Japan and South Korea.

Jayshmay said:
ATT's voice and data network are seperate from each other. I can be on the phone and the internet at the same time.

Not so. UMTS's big advantange is that voice and data operate on the same channel (on 850 on 1900MHz for AT&T and 1700MHz for T-Mobile) which is a bandwith enhancement for the operator.

Here'ya go:

https://www.phonescoop.com/carriers/forum.php?fm=m&f ... »

The maps are different because 3G isn't in all areas and new tower deployments are primarily 3G where existing towers will have both.

Backing one opinion or post with another opinion or post is not a reliable way to make your point. Try facts. They work wonders.

Wrong. They have a mixed 850MHz/1900MHz infrastructure and both frequency bands carry data as well as voice. Some areas of the country use one frequency, some use the other, and still others have a little of both.