AT&T rolling out 3G all over the place

3G, 3G, 3G—it’s like the Marcia Brady of wireless technologies. Some days, that’s all I hear about. No, the iPhone hasn’t gone 3G yet, despite word from those on high that the technology will find its way into the handset by year’s end. But, as you may recall from Steve’s introduction of the cell-phone-to-end-all-cell-phones last year, one of the reasons Apple opted not to include 3G was because the network simply wasn’t widespread enough in the US.

Seems that may be changing, though. AT&T has announced plans to expand their 3G technology, HSUPA, into 80 new cities, bringing the availability to 350 “leading” markets in the US by the end of 2008, including the top 100 US cities (by population, we presume).

So what do we get out of it? HSUPA offers faster download speeds, in the range of 600 to 1,400 kbps, and much faster uplink speeds, around 500 to 800 kbps. By contrast, the current EDGE network used by the iPhone has a theoretical maximum speed of 473.6 kbps. Très speedy.

AT&T’s not really giving details on what exactly those 80 new cities are at present, but we imagine that it’s probably not, oh, Maza, ND. Yet.

[via Engadget]

Category: AT&T

Posted by Dan Moren on Feb 6 2008, 2:59 PM ET

• © 2007 Mac Publishing, LLC.
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• Community Standards