AT&T To Launch LTE Network In 5 Cities This Summer

tekgoblin writes "AT&T is looking to get a piece of the 4G LTE pie that Verizon has a firm grasp on. They have announced today that they are going to roll out 4G in Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and San Antonio this summer and another 10 markets yet to be determined later in the year."

Comments

AT&T Has a Bridge to Sell You!

[TheWanderingHermit]

Do they think people are really that unaware of the problems with their network that they'll believe that AT&T LTE will work any better than AT&T as it is?

Wow

[BoogeyOfTheMan]

Five whole cities?

Seriously though, why didnt they do this when VZW started doing it, instead of spending so much on advertising about how awesome their network was (when it wasnt). If they would have taken the advertising dollars and actually spent it on the network to make it do what they claimed it could, maybe people wouldnt constantly rate them the lowest in customer satisfaction.

Re:Wow

[Shag]

Seriously though, why didnt they do this when VZW started doing it, instead of spending so much on advertising about how awesome their network was (when it wasnt).

Eh, AT&T's LTE roadmap (rollout starts in 2011, but most of it happens in 2012) is super-hyper-extra-old news, it's been set for years. As for why they didn't try to compete more with Verizon... I figure they plan to have an LTE network ready about the same time there's an LTE iPhone to use it. And as someone who grew up with Hell Atlantic, I can attest that there are plenty of people out there whose loathing for AT&T is matched, if not exceeded, by their loathing for Verizon.

The flip side of the question is why Verizon jumped on LTE so early that there weren't even handsets available. Trying to get away from the dead-end of CDMA? :)

Re:Well....

[cgenman]

ITU relented. LTE is now officially 4G, according to them.

Lame, but what can you do? Their 4G definition would be nice, but it is impractical to have the next network naming standard be for a technology that is years off, and with at least one level of interim network speed technology between them.

Re:Marketing

[Fallen Kell]

The problem is that in Estonia, you only need a network that can handle 2 million people (which gives room for 30-35% population increase/tourists over total population in the country). Just covering Chicago alone has more than double the population of your entire country....