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AT&T Says 7.2Mbps Wireless Coming This Year
CWmike writes "AT&T will upgrade to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 wireless networking technology later this year, offering faster (up to 7.2 Mbit/sec.) network speeds to new compatible laptop cards and smartphones due to be released at the same time, the company said today. Current HSPA download speeds can theoretically reach 3.6 MBit/sec, according to AT&T executives who commented on the planned upgrade in April. AT&T did not comment on which laptop cards and smartphones will be compatible with HSPA 7.2 other than to say it will introduce 'multiple' devices later this year. Could this be one of the big iPhone announcements to come from WWDC?"
Haha. This is AT&T. You'll be limited to 3GB a month. 7.2 is burst not sustained. And if your neighbor thinks like you do, you'll both be using the same tower. Somehow I doubt AT&T is going to run fiber to each tower to support a large number of users.
Current HSPA download speeds can theoretically reach 3.6 MBit/sec,
There is no difference between theory and practice in theory, but there is in practice.
Not only that, but there aren't enough circuits, so even though your phone will show 5 bars... as soon as you try to make a call, send a text, or transfer any data, it will immediately drop to 0 or 1 bars, and then say no service.
Yes, this happens on the north side in Chicago all the time.
Who cares if their towers are supporting some new transport/band between the tower and your phone... if they don't have enough circuits, or they don't have enough bandwidth going to each tower in the first place, it is pretty much worthless -- and that has been my experience for the past year in Chicago with my iPhone.
Is it any coincidence you thought of the exact same thing as the summary?
Whale
sure, they'll let you use port 80, 8080, and maybe even 443 but what cost is the freedom to use the bandwidth for what _you_ want to use it for? Didn't I see where T-Mobile's G1 _unlimited_ data plan bills you extra for Chat and IM and I would guess they block the standard VOIP port(s) too.
The Internet may be thought of by some as a "bunch of tubes" but these companies are carving it up so they control what you do on the "tube". Speed isn't the only thing that's important here.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
"New high speed internet" they said, "faster than anything you seen before". Now I could be wrong but for some reason cell service went to shit. Coincidence? I live 2 miles away from the tower with direct line of sight. And the problem isn't just signal strength but weird noises, echoes and interference.
5gb a month actually. Shared local OC3. To most in cities anyway.
Some phones already have the HSDPA 7.2Mbps capability. AT&T has just neutered their firmware through various settings. Luckily, for some phones, you can just revert these settings, and in some places, receive 7.2Mbps today.
For example, the HTC Fuze/Touch Pro can do 7.2Mbps after some registry tweaks.
I have AT&T for my DSL and I can't even get their 6 Mbps DSL connection with a WIRE. And they want me to believe they're going to give me 7 Mbps on my cellphone?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Backhaul You can have 7.2Mbps to the base station, but from all accounts, the backhaul from said base stations SUCKS, so you won't get anywhere near that. Thats the sneaky trick. They offer UP TO 7.2Mpbs, but really its dependant on backhaul, and how said backhaul has been configured. Expect throughput of about 500kbps
Combat Wombat - Heavy outback ordanance.
The actual quote is: "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." Source is either Yogi Berra or Chuck Reid.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
At least his sig is appropriate.
Plus their high speed coverage generally only extends to large urban areas.
Oddly enough, this is where most people live.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Even if we assume that their speed claims are true, the benefit of this new product will be severely limited if ATT Wireless retains their currently policy of charging $0.25/MB once users hit their monthly limit of 5GB. I finally gave up on ATT because it was such a pain to monitor my usage and stop normal broadband activity (e.g., youtube, etc.) near the end of every month when I got close to the limit.
I know people are going to argue that cellular wireless suffers from awful latency, making this completely unviable for anything but light web surfing...
I'd like to preemptively note that I've heard HSDPA has very good latency for wireless... at least on paper.
This is merely anecdotal, I also hear others talking about 60-80ms latency, which is *great* compared to other common cellular data technologies such as Edge and 3G. It might not be perfect for gaming, but it should be suitable for multimedia providing the cellular network has the balls to handle it.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
What, don't you people have this already?
I just moved, and since my slowpoke ISP is slow, I won't have ADSL in my new place until one or two weeks from now. To cover the meantime I ordered mobile broadband which is a USB 3G dongle that you can connect to your computer. It can do HSPA, and EDGE and "3G". I'm pretty close to a tower, but I got 2mbps down and 0.2 up, and a latency of about 300ms, so I think I'll keep borrowing my neighbour's wifi instead and just return this instead. The mobile provider also had a campaign right now, so the monthly cost is 0. There is a 5GB cap though (if you hit it, they throttle you to 60kbps), and the regular price is $30 a month.
There, feel free to be envious, rant about how AT&T are screwing the US consumers, curse us Europeans, and possibly, just possibly start the whole broadband country ranking debate again. :-)
And they claim they'll double it by the end of the year (with multicarrier HSPA+?)
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
I don't want to make excuses for telcos, but do you mean the Japan that is half the size of Texas?
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Can we please ban the use of "up to" in advertising? The same goes for "as much as" and all their ilk.
How it isn't simply declared false advertising is beyond me.
It's like those super soakers that were advertised as shooting "up to 30 feet!". Yeah, right. Only if you whip your arm about before firing to impart some momentum to the water, then fire downwind at a 37 degree angle in a category 4 hurricane. Otherwise it was more like 10 feet.
How about if the mean average performance of the product isn't at least 80% of the advertised "up to" figure, you don't get to use that figure. Or require that all "up to" claims be accompanied with a bell curve that show people that most of them will be getting significantly less 100% of the time?
Question everything
From: This Article
The upgrade to the faster network is just one part of AT&T's plans to boost its overall network... In addition, AT&T plans on increasing its radio-frequency capacity by a factor of almost double, which it says will help with both overall coverage and in-building reception; adding more bandwidth to cell sites, to help accommodate more traffic and prepare for both HSPA 7.2 and LTE; rolling out over 2,000 more cell sites nationwide; and introducing femtocell technology for improved in-building coverage.
As you can see, they do in fact plan on adding bandwidth to existing towers as well as adding additional towers. If this is correct, you should start seeing improvements, not only in speed but in reception as well.
Earlier this week the first 4G base station was installed in central Stockholm.
The next generation mobile technology (LTE) provides speeds up to 150 Mb/s.
AT&T loses.
AT&T is smoked if Apple allows Verizon or any other LTE carrier to get their hands on the iPhone ahead of AT&T's network rebuild 3 years down the road. AT&T is doing this because Verizon is supposedly getting ready to get iPhones as part of their changeover from CDMA to GSM in 2010 (and thus gain LTE capability) - plus Verizon is *already* testing LTE in a couple of markets.
AT&T's foot dragging with coverage problems, their denial that they need better endpoint bandwidth, etc - its now coming back to bite them in the ass.
AT&T is about a year and a half behind Version in LTE testing for deployment (they are projecting 2011-2012 for LTE at AT&T). So they are stuck with 7.2Mbit HSPA.
Verizon will skip HSPA and go straight to the higher speed LTE in 2010, long before AT&T can get there. And that upgrade comes at about the same time Apple's exclusivity with AT&T dies, what a coincidence. hmmmm.
WHats LTE mean for data rates? Here: 60mbits at less than 100 mW demonstrated December by LG at NTT DOCOMO.
Ericsson already has an operational LTE net in Stockholm that runs 50Mb/s supposedly.
And look at this: 170mbits -- in a moving car!
DO WANT!
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That's OK. At least we know you're not new here.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.