WoldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.
US number two operator AT&T launched LTE networks in five cities this last Sunday, according to reports.
AT&T CFO John Stephens revealed the plans while speaking at a Bank of America/Merrill Lynch event, saying the company will go live with the next-generation mobile broadband technology in Atlanta (Georgia), Chicago (Illinois), Dallas, Houston and San Antonio (all in Texas) on 18 September.
The operator previously said it would implement LTE in these cities but had only revealed a timeframe of “later this summer.” It will charge US$50 per month for 5GB of data, similar to competitors such as Verizon Wireless. The plan also comes with a US$10 per GB overage fee.
In August, a leaked report provided clues to AT&T’s LTE plans. The document said the company plans to have LTE mobile broadband available to 70 million people by the end of this year, 170 million a year later and 250 million by the end of 2013.
The report also revealed that this timetable would require US$3.8billion in investment, upgrading 44,000 nodes to LTE over a three year period.
Number one US operator Verizon Wireless has progressed much further with its LTE rollout, this week announcing the addition of 26 additional cities and the expansion of networks in Cleveland, Indianapolis and San Francisco, bringing the total number of cities covered by its LTE network to 143, covering 160 million people. Verizon also this week revealed it is - unsurprisingly - working on standards for LTE-Advanced, the next step on from LTE. Given that it is 'only' currently working on standards, commercial deployment remains a way off.
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