AT&T's HSUPA upgrade just around the corner
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 26th 2007 at 12:02PM
Richard Burns, AT&T's president of wireless network services, has revealed some key stats and plans for the company's 3G network -- not a topic of much interest for iPhone owners, granted, but he says those folks think the EDGE experience is "great" anyway (whatever). The number of market areas covered by its HSDPA network should touch the 200 mark by the end of this year, and while AT&T won't succeed in upgrading its entire network to 3G by the end of 2008, Mr. Burns says that the build-out will continue throughout the year in order of data demand, which we take to mean that the most rural of rural areas are still going to be plumb out of luck here. Perhaps more interestingly, though, he revealed that the planned upgrade to HSUPA is well underway, with coverage going live in the next couple months. Of course, that means new data modems are gonna be necessary to take advantage, but if hosting a website from a park bench is a priority for you, it could very well be worth the cost of admission.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
HAHAH @ Sep 26th 2007 1:22PM
Nice I still dont have 3G coverage and there upgrading it. How about getting you existing network working? Getting dropped as i move from 3G to non 3G towers is realllllllly annoying.
Paul @ Sep 26th 2007 1:24PM
*sigh* they're, your
Shawn Pauley @ Sep 26th 2007 1:40PM
So true. I can't believe they would start upgrading HSDPA towers when most areas don't even have 3G as an option. The closest 3G area is an hour away from me. And I don't live in the middle of nowhere, I live in a smaller but established town.
ryantrevisol @ Sep 26th 2007 2:24PM
I live in a 3G market, in the middle of a large 3g Coverage area, and I had to downgrade my phone because I didn't want to drop EVERY SINGLE CALL I made from my car if I happened to cross Hillsboro Blvd. It's bollocks.
I'm waiting. The 700Mhz free gPhone will be my chance to stick it to the man.
Ed Hardy @ Sep 26th 2007 12:55PM
At some point during this announcement, did Mr. Burns touch his fingertips together and say "Excellent"?
Jeff_in_LA @ Sep 26th 2007 6:52PM
^^ now THAT was funny!
akatsuki @ Sep 26th 2007 1:10PM
So, as Sprint is ready to go WiMax/4G, AT&T will finally have a 3G network? They should just skip it.
MasterCKO @ Sep 26th 2007 6:32PM
I was just about to say the same thing. By the time AT&T has a full coverage 3G HSDPA network, Sprint will have a near full coverage 4G WiMax network (not to mention their already superior 3G coverage). Sprint ahead, indeed.
elgee02 @ Sep 26th 2007 1:44PM
Meanwhile, VZW recently added EV-DO REV A to smaller Colorado cities Durango, Alamosa, Telluride, La Junta, and Trinidad. AT&T on the other hand, doesn't even have HSDPA in DENVER yet...
Yankees368 @ Sep 26th 2007 6:24PM
Denver? They don't even have 3G service on 70% of Long Island, and half of Brooklyn!
elgee02 @ Sep 26th 2007 1:49PM
So AT&T doesn't even have HSDPA in Denver Colorado yet VZW recently wired these smaller Colorado towns with some Rev A love: Durango, Telluride, Alamosa and Monte Vista, and towns of Canyon City, Lamar, La Junta, Trinidad and Walsenburg.
That's just one example. I could go on...
elgee02 @ Sep 26th 2007 1:53PM
Whoops! Sorry for the double post, I thought my first one wasn't going to show up so I posted it again. My bad!
BrianJ @ Sep 26th 2007 2:51PM
For as many customers as they have (and I'm one of them), they sure have the poorest call quality when it comes to 3G. Who is pocketing all this money that gets sent in every month from 63.7 million subscribers?
I live in Nashville and I have to lock my phone into GSM because the handover from 3G to GSM doesn't work! That's right... IT DOESN'T WORK! Going from GSM to 3G is fine, but driving down the road... or get this... going from one side of my house to the other will lock up my call and drop it. Really makes me want to switch to Verizon or Sprint. I wonder if we'll ever really see the true speed of HSDPA from at&t.
e-dub @ Sep 26th 2007 2:56PM
man, i live in nashville and this kaiser is flying. i also have yet to drop a call from 3g to 2g...
eric b
ShortFuse @ Sep 26th 2007 3:21PM
I can see why they're doing this before they launch it in rural areas. They need to do it in order to compete with Sprint and Verizon for business customers (the ones with the greatest demands). The 1.5mbit download speed is great but the uploading is on UMTS speeds. 1.5mbps/768kbps would be enough for people in 3G areas (major cities) to switch from Sprint/Verizon. They're catering to those first.
As for the dropping of calls from switching from 2G to 3G, that's really your phone. I've heard reports of the CU500 dropping the calls. The Razr V3xx doesn't drop the calls when switching and it doesn't even drop the internet connection in the middle of a download (on the handset or tethered) when switching from HSDPA to EDGE.
jrk @ Sep 26th 2007 10:59PM
For the record, HSUPA isn't just for hosting web sites from your laptop in the park, the upgraded spec also significantly improves latency. For anyone who has actually used a mobile data device, the reason they are "slow" (even the 3G ones) is primarily latency, not bandwidth. This is even the biggest difference between EDGE, UMTS, and HSDPA (each significantly reduces average and best-case latency, down from ~1s on EDGE towards 100-200ms on HSDPA, and
Juaquin @ Sep 27th 2007 4:17AM
Hmmm - not to be that guy that has to bring the iPhone into everything - but maybe they're rolling this out before finishing HSDPA because the next iPhone will be rolling on HSUPA? Purely speculation, but it seems like the only logical reason for never really finishing the HSDPA network.
elgee02 @ Sep 27th 2007 1:54PM
Ok one more example state where VZW whoops the snot out of AT&T in 3G coverage and I'm done for the day... promise.
Let's use my home state of Arizona. AT&T has the 2 largest metro areas, Phoenix and Tuscon, covered in HSDPA. That's good and all BUT...
VZW has EV-DO Rev A not only in the Phoenix and Tuscon metros but also in: Flagstaff, Prescott, Payson, Yuma, Coolidge, Douglas, Safford, Nogales, Sierra Vista, and Casa Grande. Just about any halfway decent sized city in this state.
ShortFuse @ Sep 28th 2007 10:05AM
It's like comparing the xbox360 sales numbers to the PS3. PS3 is selling nearly the exact same number of consoles as the xbox360 per month when it launched. But if you look at the numbers now, you'll say the ps3 is doing horribly when in reality, it's progressing exactly like the 360 did.
Since the launch, they had to play catchup. Of course Verizon launched EVDO ins late 2004 while AT&T UMTS in march 2006 and then launched HSDPA in feb 2007. Of you can look at it and say "oh Verizon has better 3G coverage." Well duh, they launched it a year and a half earlier.
Since AT&T knows it probably can't catch up to VZW or Sprint's coverage anytime soon they have to try to level the battlefield with something else. HSUPA is more important to AT&T than increased 3G converage right now because they said they'll launch video calling when they launch HSUPA.
trooth @ Sep 28th 2007 4:22PM
HSUPA can compete with Rev A. HSDPA can not. They have to launch it in major markets to get caught up to Verizon Wireless and Sprint before they get labeled as the slow data network. Do you think T-Mobile gets much business customers or data revenue customers? The Cell phone market is getting crowded in the US and there isnt much room to grab new subscribers. The data market is wide open though. Its not just about data cards, its about pdas, blackberrys, and even data service on the plain old phone.
AT&T is just behind, and more than likely will stay behind because they started behind. I don't believe that AT&T values their data services enough to spend the cash to roll it out like Sprint and Verizon wireless have.
Fadi Alsaidi @ Oct 1st 2007 1:06AM
one big main reason for att to be behinde VZW and sprint is the simple fact that HSDPA and later on HSUPA is a whole different technology than GSM and therfore it takes greater time and money for the bulid out. VZW and Sprint EVDO with all its flavors are just upgrades to a current network. we have to admit that HSDPA will make a big difference for a long time for the simple fact that data and voice are seperate entities. and for people who is droping calls because of swiching between 3G and 2G please change your phone before you just assume its a network problem...in all 3G area att voice quality seems to be quit good due to the simple fact that data is completly seperate....for those who don't have 3G coverage yet and having problems with voice quality you can simply turn edge off or make it not allways connected and you will notice an improvment in voice quality...my personal opinion is that att will have a lot less problems with voice qualit if they configer thier phone to connect to edge only when a user needs it instead of allways on just like t-mobile...ohh well data is soooo sweet no matter what network you are on