Tag Archives: coverage

AT&T says it invested $675 million in networks in Georgia first half 2013

Let’s compare T’s recent investments in various states. The telco and cableco incumbents played this game back in 2004, too, going on about how much they were investing, so the Valdosta City Council wouldn’t vote to do its own municipal network. What’s the plan to get fast (100Mbps+) affordable (less than $30/month) Internet access everywhere in Georgia?

Christopher Seward wrote for AJC 8 August 2013, AT&T: $675M invested in Georgia networks,

T 4G (not LTE) Coverage in Georgia AT&T said Thursday it invested more than $675 million to upgrade its wireless and wired networks in Georgia in the first half of the year.

The investments include new cell towers—base stations used to send signals to mobile phones—more antenna reach, improvements to its 4G LTE network for quicker data downloads and more Wi-Fi hotspots, the company said.

Here’s the actual T PR of 9 August 2013, AT&T Invests More Than $675 Million in Georgia Wireless and Wireline Networks, which has some details about cable, 4G LTE, etc., including this: Continue reading →

Coverage: T vs. VZ for 4G LTE

How does AT&T’s new local 4G LTE coverage compare to Sprint’s?

AT&T coverage map and still rolling more out, said Tony Adams in the Ledger-Inquirer, Update: AT&T adds cell sites outside Columbus, launches yearly smartphone upgrade plan July 26,

AT&T has 4G in the Columbus market, but not the faster LTE. A check of the firm’s coverage map shows virtually every other major metro area in Georgia with LTE, while many smaller communities in the state also have the top-of-the-line service.

Elsas, in a statement, said the company uses HSPA+ technology locally and those 4G speeds “are incredibly fast — up to four times faster than 3G.” But she also acknowledged there is work to be done on adding spectrum, or capacity, to the Columbus network.

Verizon coverage map (top) “As far as LTE, there is currently a lack of available spectrum in Columbus, and we are working hard to address this,” the statement said. “In the meantime, Verizon coverage map (bottom) we continue to invest in technology, strengthen our network and seek opportunities to offer the best wireless experience possible in the region.”

“Possible” of course includes Continue reading →

AT&T 4G LTE now in Valdosta @ VLCIA 2013-07-16

Verizon won’t be the only 4G LTE access in Valdosta anymore: AT&T has turned theirs on. It’s not clear how far out of town that extends (looks to me like I still need to go stand by my west gate if I want on), but at least it’s a start of competition, and maybe T will get around to increasing its coverage (see next post). If Softbank + Sprint + Clearwire comes here, as well, maybe we’ll see something like a competitive market. It’s not clear even that will be enough to get fast affordable access everywhere in south Georgia. For that, maybe our local elected and appointed officials will continue with the advocacy they started back in February.

Andrea Schruijer and the AT&T 4G LTE PR As mentioned at the Industrial Authority yesterday evening by Executive Director Andrea Schruijer (video to come), here’s AT&T’s PR of 2 July 2013, AT&T 4G LTE Available In Valdosta: Customers to benefit from nation’s fastest 4G LTE network on the latest devices,

VALDOSTA, Ga., July 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — AT&T* has turned on the nation’s fastest 4G LTE network** in Valdosta, bringing customers the latest generation of wireless network technology. Watch here to see several of the benefits AT&T 4G LTE provides, including:

  • Faster speeds. LTE technology is capable of delivering mobile Internet speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G***. Customers can stream, download, upload and game faster than ever before.
  • Cool new devices. AT&T offers several LTE-compatible devices, including new AT&T 4G LTE smartphones and tablets.
  • Faster response time. LTE technology offers lower latency, or the processing time it takes to move data through a network, such as how long it takes to start downloading a webpage or file once you’ve sent the request. Lower latency helps to improve services like mobile gaming, two-way video calling and telemedicine.
  • More efficient use of spectrum. Wireless spectrum is a finite resource, and LTE uses spectrum more efficiently than other technologies, creating more space to carry data traffic and services and to deliver a better network experience.

“Wireless infrastructure investment is critical to Georgia’s future and I am very pleased to see AT&T investing in Valdosta and Lowndes County and bringing LTE service to our community,” said Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority. “Advanced technology like LTE will help stimulate our economy and provide new tools and services that we need to compete for business.”

“We continue Continue reading →

AT&T 4G LTE Bait and Switch

AT&T told the FCC last year it didn’t have enough spectrum to deploy 4G LTE in less-populous areas, but not it’s deploying the same thing almost everywhere in the U.S.

David Goldman wrote for CNNMoneyTech 7 November 2012, AT&T caught in a brazen 4G lie,

AT&T on Wednesday announced a plan to cover 96% of the U.S. population with 4G-LTE service by the end of 2014. That’s great news for customers — but it reveals that AT&T told regulators a pretty big whopper last year while fighting for its doomed T-Mobile merger.

One of the deal’s fiercest battle points was 4G access outside major cities. Without T-Mobile, AT&T (T, Fortune 500) said it was “very unlikely” that it would expand 4G-LTE service beyond the 80% coverage threshold it already planned to reach by 2013.

“In some of these [less-populous] areas, AT&T simply lacks the spectrum necessary to deploy LTE,” the company told the Federal Communications Commission in a written defense of its proposal.

Yet….

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Japan’s Softbank buys Sprint because CEO Son says U.S. networks too slow

U.S. car manufacturers decades ago milked profits out of poor technology and got outcompeted by Japan on both quality and price. The same thing is happening right now with fast Internet service. We may not have to wait for Verizon and AT&T to get around to offering affordable fast 4G LTE Internet service: Sprint may do it first, now that Japan’s Softbank is stepping in.

Roger Chang wrote for CNET News 15 October 2012, Japan’s Softbank poised to supercharge Sprint network: Softbank CEO complains that U.S. networks are too slow, and with his $20 billion bid for Sprint, he aims to do something about that.

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son isn’t impressed with the high-speed wireless networks in the United States.

“Everytime I come to the U.S., I say ‘Oh my God, the mobile phone network is so slow,'” Son said during a conference call with analysts today.

Now, Son is in a position to change things to his liking after Softbank and Sprint Nextel agreed on a deal in which Softbank would take a 70 percent stake in the U.S. carrier.

Sprint, which has struggled as a distant No. 3 carrier behind AT&T and Verizon Wireless, could get a boost from the deal, in which Softbank spends $12.1 billion to buy the controlling stake and another $8 billion in investment into the company.

What’s he aiming at improving?

Continue reading →

4G LTE Internet services costs too much, can come down

More people would buy 4G LTE if the price was lower, which we know is possible because it is 2 to 10 times lower in Europe. And then a lot more people around here would have fast Internet service.

Kevin J. O’Brien wrote for the NYTimes 15 October 2012, Americans Paying More for LTE Service

Vodafone LTE A comparison by Wireless Intelligence, a unit of the GSM Association, suggests that being in the biggest LTE market has not brought low prices to U.S. consumers.

According to the study, Verizon Wireless, which is a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone, charges $7.50 for each gigabyte of data downloaded over its LTE network. That is three times the European average of $2.50 and more than 10 times what consumers pay in Sweden, where a gigabyte costs as little as 63 cents.

Standard business practice: sell a new service for as much as the market will bear, and come down in price over time. Except in the U.S. there isn’t much of a market, with only 2 or 3 wireless carriers offering 4G LTE, as the article notes:

Continue reading →

VZ 4G vs. AT&T DSL, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2012-09-08

It turns out you can’t yet buy Verizon’s HomeFusion Broadband 4G wireless Internet service

in Georgia. (You can buy it in Tennessee.) However, in Georgia, you can buy one of several 4G LTE devices that have most of the same capabilities. For example, I have here a Verizon Jetpack™ 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi©, which is about the size of a pack of cards. A few minutes ago I compared its speeds directly with AT&T 3Mbps DSL. Here are the results.

The MiFi I’ve got is a slightly older model of the one pictured above, because for years

AT&T DSL: 2.66Mbps down 0.31Mbps up
AT&T DSL
VZ 4G: 10.88Mbps down 7.14Mbps up
Verizon 4G
I’ve been using it and its predecessors on road trips, for Skype, web browsing, blog posting, etc. It’s also come in very handy as a plan B home Internet access method on the many occassions when AT&T’s DSL has flaked out. Mostly I did not use it for uploading videos or watching them much, because until recently it was relatively slow, using EVDO technology at about 1Mbps down and 0.7Mbps up. Suddenly, the MiFi has gotten much much faster, ten times faster, because Verizon has turned on their 4G LTE service in Lowndes County, at least for mobile access.

The tables show results using SpeakEasy Speedtest a few minutes ago.

Megabytes/secMegabits/sec
downup downup
AT&T DSL 2.66Mbps 0.31Mbps 322KB/sec 38KB/sec
Verizon 4G 10.88Mbps 7.14Mbps 1360KB/sec 893KB/sec

Verizon’s 4G LTE is way faster, as in Continue reading →

4G data caps and prices

It may be fast, but there are some drawbacks to 4G wireless Internet access, namely data limits and significant prices. Here’s Verizon’s table for their HomeFusion Broadband.

Monthly Data Allowance Monthly Access
10GB $60
20GB $90
30GB $120

I would bet the other companies’ caps and prices are pretty much the same. For web browsing, you’ll probably never run over that lowest 10GB/month limit. So if you want to tweet or facebook or tumblr or email with your friends, 4G probably will work fine for you.

If you do a lot of Skype or listening to music over the net, you might run over. If you watch a lot of videos, or you want to do video conferencing, you can definitely run over. Here’s Verizon’s table of estimates, and they have a calculator along with that:

Email (Text Only) = 10 KB
Typical Web Page Lookup* = 1MB
Audio Streaming = 51 MB/hr
Video Streaming (Standard Def) = 500MB/hr
Video Streaming (HIgh Def) = 1.6GB/hr
Digital Photo Download/Upload (Hi-Res) = 5 MB
4G VoIP = 67MB/hr
4G VoIP with Video = 254MB/hr

1 MB = 1,024KB
1 GB = 1,024MB

Videos of a single VLCIA meeting can run 2 gigabytes, and there are lots of other meetings going on around here. Not every local elected or appointed board has 5 minute meetings like the Lowndes County Commission. Many run for an hour or more.

Even though I’m a pretty intensive Internet user, I’m considering getting 4G home service. Someday AT&T may get around to running fiber for their uverse service out here in my sparsely populated area of the county, and then we might be able to get 3-24Mbps down (and unknown speeds up) for $38 to $63/month. Some year. Or never, if wireless speeds continue to leapfrog even fiber speeds. OK, real fiber speeds such as in Finland, Japan, France, Korea, or dozens of other countries are 100Mbps or up, but U.S. telcos and cablecos are not going to offer speeds like that until they’ve milked every penny they can get out of slower speeds first. Not to mention what the U.S. carriers are really selling with fiber is TV, which is a dying broadcast medium, fast being left in the dust by the participatory social Internet. Who do you know under 30 who gets their news from TV anymore?

Anyway, I don’t know whether 4G Internet service would work for you, but at least it’s another option.

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4G wireless Internet speeds

How fast is 4G wireless Internet, anyway? Mark Sullivan wrote for PCWorld 7 May 2012, 3G/4G Performance Map: Data Speeds for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon,

We saw three major patterns in our 4G test results. In five cities (Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco), AT&T swept the 4G upload and download competitions; in four (Denver, New Orleans, San Jose, and Seattle), Verizon swept both; and in the remaining four (Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Washington, D.C.), AT&T won for downloads and Verizon prevailed for uploads. Notably, in two of the cities where Verizon ruled (Denver and Seattle), AT&T doesn’t offer 4G LTE service.

And you’ll notice a pattern right away: they only tested big cities. So your mileage may vary around here. However, PCWorld’s observed average 4G speeds for Verizon were 7.35 Mbps down and 5.86Mbps up, and for AT&T 9.12Mbps down and 4.91Mpgs up. Verizon’s HomeFusion Broadband web page claims:

HomeFusion Broadband* is a residential Internet solution that uses Verizon’s 4G LTE network to bring reliable, high-speed Internet service to customers with limited broadband options.

Features

  • Fast Internet access with average speeds of 5-12 Mbps download and 2-5 Mbps upload
  • Wi-Fi connectivity for up to 20 devices
  • Wired (Ethernet) connectivity for up to 4 devices
  • Up to 5 email accounts included

That’s faster than Mediacom and way faster than AT&T’s alleged 3Mbps DSL I’m using at the moment, which shows 3.5Mbps down and 0.38Mbps up. Prices start at $60/month, the same as for Verizon’s Mobile Broadband 5G, which with EVDO typically does around 1Mbps down and 0.7Mbps up and with 4G typically does 5Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

Why do these speeds matter? Well, for video blogging, videos of a one hour meeting can take 8 hours to upload at 0.38 Mbps. At 5Mbps they should take less than an hour. That makes it a lot easier for LAKE to get you coverage of local events.

If you’re not video blogging, you still might like to be able to see George Rhynes’ excellent video coverage of events in Lowndes, Brooks, Lanier, and other counties. And nevermind video: a lot of people around here have no Internet access at all. This would be one way to get it. Some people around here already use Verizon’s mobile devices at home, because otherwise they’re stuck with dialup.

Then there’s reliability. I, for one, would like not to see ATM Cell Header Errors anymore, nor the “page not found, retry?” errors every few minutes. If you don’t know what those are, you probably don’t have AT&T DSL. It’s sad that wireless might be more reliable than copper. But I’m also glad about that because wireless doesn’t require running wires. And did I mention 4G wireless appears to be faster?

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Verizon or AT&T 4G in Lowndes County?

Maybe one solution to county-wide fast Internet access is 4G wireless? According to their online coverage maps, both AT&T and Verizon now offer 4G in Valdosta and almost all of Lowndes County and many surrounding counties.

IT News Online PRNewswire 15 August 2012 Verizon Wireless Introducing High-Speed 4G LTE Data Network In Valdosta,

ALPHARETTA, Ga., Aug. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Verizon Wireless customers will be able to experience the blazing fast speeds and Verizon 4G coverage map capabilities of the company’s 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in Valdosta when the service launches there on Thursday, Aug. 16. The introduction of the company’s 4G LTE network is part of Verizon Wireless’ announcement today introducing its 4G LTE network in 34 new markets, including Valdosta, and expansion in 38 other markets. The nation’s largest 4G LTE network will be available in a total of 371 markets and cover more than 75 percent of the U.S. population, including major metropolitan areas, small cities and many suburbs.

Customers who live in or visit areas including Valdosta, Lake Park, Hahira, Morven, Moody Air Force Base as well as along I-75 from Lake Park to Hahira and along State Road 125 from Moody Air Force Base to Barretts now will have access to the nation’s fastest 4G network.

Verizon’s 4G coverage map does seem to indicate the same thing.

AT&T 4G coverage map I see no announcement from AT&T, but their online map does indicate coverage here. My AT&T Android phone has a 4G light that sometimes lights up in Valdosta, but I sure don’t see it out here on the edge of the county. Maybe they just haven’t gotten to it here.

Sprint and T-Mobile do not seem to offer 4G around here. Still, 2 out of 4 would be more choice than we’ve had before.

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