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AT&T's Data Network Getting a Speed Boost With HSPA 7.2

by Terrence O'Brien on September 10, 2009 at 06:08 PM

AT&T Getting a Speed Boost to HSPA 7.2
AT&T has finally announced its plans for the launch of HSPA 7.2, an upgrade to the company's current HSDPA 3.6 data network. HSDPA (or High Speed Downlink Packet Access) is a subset of the HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) family of wireless technology. The newest upgrade to the AT&T network should effectively double download speeds to 7.2 megabits-per-second from the current offering of 3.6 megabits. It's not clear if AT&T will be boosting upload speeds as well, but we have a hard time seeing why it wouldn't.

Confusing abbreviations and numbers games aside, AT&T is sitting on a number of handsets and cellular modems (including the iPhone 3GS) capable of taking advantage of this network technology. Therefore, the company has devices ready to optimize the upgrade when it introduces the increase to Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami this year.

AT&T predicts it will cover 25 of the nation's 30 largest cities by the end of 2010, and 90-percent of its existing 3G network (over 300 markets) by the end of 2011.

While upgrading, AT&T will also be installing additional cell towers and fiber connections to help its network bear the load of increased data traffic, and to prepare it for the move to its fourth generation (4G) network -- LTE -- which will begin testing next year.

Of course, we're wondering if AT&T should spend less time worrying about boosting speed and more about providing capacity. Although AT&T, theoretically, still has the fastest 3G network in the nation, the company is still plagued by capacity and connection issues, especially in larger cities. Here in New York, we can't keep a 3G connection live for more than a few minutes and often have to try and send a text message three or four times before it will actually go through.

So HSPA 7.2 sounds nice, but we'd gladly trade it for full-time, functioning HSDPA 3.6. A high-speed network isn't worth much when you can't connect in the first place. [From: BetaNews, Engadget, and PR Newswire]

Tags: 3g, att, data plan, DataPlan, hsdpa, hspa, iphone, top

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