AT&T says it’s ‘closing the gap’ on dropped calls

AT&T spent a good bit of its earnings call today talking about its network — not too surprising, really, considering the cozy relationship between dropped calls, subscriber count, and profit. The overall takeaway was that the company is pleased with its progress and continues to improve thanks to the addition of new carriers at existing cell sites (read: increased over-the-air capacity), an ongoing backhaul renovation, and the recent roll-out of 7.2Mbps capability across most of its 3G footprint. In terms of dropped calls specifically, AT&T claims that the statistic dropped network-wide from 1.41 percent to 1.05 percent between December ’08 and ’09 — not bad, though the real problems seem to be in key high-density, high-visibility markets like Manhattan where it hasn’t yet met its vaguely-defined “performance objective.” That said, it seems convinced that it’ll patch things up over the next few months as it continues its infrastructure push — and considering that Apple’s entrusting AT&T with the iPad, we don’t doubt that there’s some work underway to mute the cries of “we want Verizon” about 90 days from now. Then again, there’s no substitute for real-world experience, so we’ll dare pose the question: are you seeing improvement in your neck of the woods? Follow the break for another juicy slide out of AT&T’s earnings deck.

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AT&T says it’s ‘closing the gap’ on dropped calls originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T kicks it into overdrive, rolls out 7.2Mbps everywhere — but there’s a catch

AT&T was quick to steal a smidge of T-Mobile’s thunder today with the announcement at an investor’s conference that has sped up its 7.2Mbps HSPA software upgrade to all 3G cell sites, moving up the original deadline of 2011. Here’s the thing, though: they didn’t really move up the 2011 date because 7.2Mbps-capable cells don’t do much good without a wide-enough pipe to feed them on the back end. That’s the other part of AT&T’s one-two punch for boosting network speeds, and that part won’t be wrapped up for a while yet. The company says that it expects “the majority” of the mobile data it handles to operate over its upgraded back end by the tail end of this year — and it’s already started the upgrades in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami — but the reality here is that we probably won’t be blazing anywhere near the theoretical max throughput for a little while yet.

AT&T kicks it into overdrive, rolls out 7.2Mbps everywhere — but there’s a catch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile takes entire 3G network to 7.2Mbps

It’s really that upcoming 21Mbps HSPA+ action that has us all hot and bothered, but T-Mobile USA took a nice little interim step today in announcing that its entire 3G footprint has now been upgraded from 3.6 to 7.2Mbps. Considering that AT&T won’t be at 100 percent 7.2Mbps coverage for some time to come, this is a nice little boost — of course, T-Mob’s got a smaller network to contend with, so it’s a trade-off for customers. Can someone do us a favor and drop us a line when we can finally have both a blazing network and coverage everywhere? At the same time?

[Thanks, Patrick]

T-Mobile takes entire 3G network to 7.2Mbps originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ericsson demos 42Mbps HSPA Evolution for the laypeople

Talk about making good on a promise… and then some. Back in March, Ericsson proudly proclaimed that it would be able to make 21Mbps look like child’s play by reaching 28Mbps before the dawn of 2010, and now the company is tooting its horn once more after demonstrating 42Mbps equipment to common folk over in Stockholm, Sweden. Reportedly, it’s the planet’s first 42Mbps HSPA achievement on commercial products, and better still, it’s now available for mass deployment. Unfortunately, details beyond that were few and far between — we’re guessing Ericsson just needed an avenue to gloat — but we suspect carriers like Telstra will be pushing out their own releases once the upgrades start rolling out. Granted, we’ve seen mobile data rates tickle the 42Mbps mark before, but those showcases were hardly ready for public consumption. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T are spending bundles arguing about their comparatively glacial “3G networks.” Way to go, America.

Ericsson demos 42Mbps HSPA Evolution for the laypeople originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ericsson trials HSPA-LTE interoperability, we count 7 Gs in total

Since it’ll be eons until we enjoy the kind of 4G coverage that we’ve grown used to on 2G (and to a lesser extent, 3G), manufacturers and carriers are hard at work making sure that we’ve got a reliable way to interoperate for the foreseeable future — TeliaSonera, for instance, wants to swap out its customers’ modems for LTE / HSPA dual-mode versions once they’re available next year. To that end, Ericsson and ST-Ericsson are trumpeting that they’ve become the first to establish “LTE and HSPA mobility” in accordance with 3GPP’s Release 8 specification, which dictates this sort of stuff in a way everyone can agree on (that’s a good thing). Verizon’s naturally more interested in the CDMA handoffs that have already gone down, but for AT&T and most of the rest of the world, this is exciting news indeed.

Ericsson trials HSPA-LTE interoperability, we count 7 Gs in total originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ralph de la Vega promises fix for San Francisco and Manhattan coverage, plans to ‘address’ heaviest data users

Love that Pandora app? Well, we’ve got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that AT&T’s wireless head honcho Ralph de la Vega says it’s hard at work at improving service in San Francisco and Manhattan, where it sees especially high smartphone penetration — and coincidentally a higher concentration of whiny tech journalists. The bad news, though, is that it might end up hitting you in the pocketbook. Speaking to investors today, de la Vega mentioned that the company is well aware that downtown New Yorkers are suffering, specifically calling out the area for “performing at levels below [its] standards” expressing confidence that it’s going to get the problem resolved. In the same breath, though, he assured attendees that independent testing conducted by Global Wireless Solutions shows that a test of over 415 markets (which probably means 416 markets) has AT&T coming out on top for network speed — something that we found in our testing as well — and is “within two-tenths of 1 percent of the highest score among major providers” for dropped calls at 1.32 percent averaged nationally. Anyway, about that bad news — the company has noticed that a huge chunk (some 40 percent) of its broadband is consumed by just 3 percent of smartphone users, and it’s suggesting that it’ll “address” that through a combination of usage meters (no complaints there) and likely a tiered pricing model that sticks it to the heaviest users “in a way that’s consistent with net-neutrality and FCC regulations.” At a glance, that sounds “fair” — we’d rather they not increase data fees across the board to average out a very small number of users — but the long-lost term “unlimited” still gives us a warm fuzzy that we’re hoping to win back sooner or later. When LTE shows up, perhaps?

Ralph de la Vega promises fix for San Francisco and Manhattan coverage, plans to ‘address’ heaviest data users originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qualcomm chips promises 1GHz speeds in ‘mainstream smartphones,’ simultaneous HSPA+ / LTE support

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon has brought about a new wave of possibilities for smartphones, but evidently those chips are just too exclusive to slip into so-called “mainstream smartphones.” In order to remedy such a tragedy, the outfit has today introduced the MSM7x30 family of solutions, which uses an 800 MHz to 1GHz custom superscalar CPU based on the ARM v7 instruction set. The chips support 720p video encoding / decoding at 30fps, integrated 2D and 3D graphics (with support for OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1), 5.1-channel surround sound, a 12 megapixel camera sensor and built-in GPS. In related news, the outfit also announced that it is sampling the industry’s first chipsets for dual-carrier HSPA+ and multi-mode 3G / LTE, which ought to make those champing at the bit for a speedier WWAN highway exceedingly giddy. Hit the links below for all the technobabble.

Read – MSM7x30 solutions
Read – Dual-carrier HSPA+ and Multi-Mode 3G/LTE chipsets

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Qualcomm chips promises 1GHz speeds in ‘mainstream smartphones,’ simultaneous HSPA+ / LTE support originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile 7.2Mbps HSPA rolling out now?

Reports are coming in, by and large it seems via Android and Me, that T-Mobile’s begun its rollout of its 7.2Mbps HSPA network for some extra speedy mobile browsing. We’ve done some testing in the listed cities, notably Chicago and New York, but so far are coming up with the usual, mundane speeds. It’d certainly make up for yesterday’s snafu (almost), but at this point we’re classifying as unconfirmed. Anyone else having better luck?

Read – 1MB mobile speed test
Read – Android and Me’s report

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T-Mobile 7.2Mbps HSPA rolling out now? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Telus kicks off HSPA+ network with iPhone November 5th, HTC Hero, LG New Chocolate and more to follow

Telus already announced that it’d be launching the iPhone in November, but it’s just now gotten official with an actual date: November 5th — which just so happens to also be the day that it lights up its brand new HSPA+ network. Unfortunately for anyone hoping that a little competition would spark a price war, Telus is matching Rogers’ prices across the board, starting at $99.99 for the basic 8GB iPhone 3G, and moving up to $199.99 for the 16GB 3GS, and $299.99 for the 32GB 3GS (all on a three-year contract, of course). What’s more, Telus has also taken the opportunity to offer the first official confirmation of some of the other devices that’ll take advantage of its new network, including the HTC Hero, the previously rumored LG New Chocolate (a.k.a BL40), the Blackberry Bold 9700, and the Nokia E71 (plus a USB stick, for good measure). No prices or release dates for any of those just yet, unfortunately, but the Hero and New Chocolate are apparently Telus exclusives.

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Telus kicks off HSPA+ network with iPhone November 5th, HTC Hero, LG New Chocolate and more to follow originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sholes / Droid comes in US HSPA flavor, probably not US-bound

We’ve been led to believe in the past that there’d be a GSM version of Motorola’s mighty Sholes for markets outside the US, but this particular version that passed the FCC this week — ID IHDP56KC5, if you must know — has us particularly interested. Why? Well, it’s packing WCDMA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, which means it’d work on AT&T, Rogers, and HSPA newcomers Bell and Telus. We’ve been led to believe, though, that this particular device is destined for Latin America where 850 / 1900 is also used in favor of the 2100MHz spectrum more prevalent in Europe. That doesn’t rule out Canada, but our instincts tell us that Verizon has every intention of locking up the Sholes as a US exclusive, which means AT&T is a likely no-go — the carrier’s been strangely silent on Android, anyhow, and we haven’t heard a peep of recent intel suggesting they’re prepping Google-powered gear in time for the holidays. Of course, enterprising individuals will probably figure out how to unlock and import this bad boy, so if you’re an American and the thought of switching to Big Red for a Droid makes you physically ill, take heart that there might yet be hope.

[Via MobileCrunch]

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Motorola Sholes / Droid comes in US HSPA flavor, probably not US-bound originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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