AT&T to “finish” deploying 3G in June

And now for another in the long line of tacit confirmations about the imminent arrival of the 3G iPhone. AT&T announced earlier this week that they will “complete” the rollout of their 3G network by the end of June.

The “completion” that AT&Tis bragging about, however, appears to specifically refer to network capabilities, not geographical coverage. At present, the 3G service is available in 275 markets in the US, with that number projected to hit 350 by the end of the year.

AT&T is in the process of rolling out HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) to the last few markets that already have HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) service. HSUPA boosts upload speeds to between 500 and 800 Kbps, compared to the HSDPA speeds of 1.4 Mbps.

Still, this step does bode well for a 3G iPhone coming out of the gate in June. One of the problems Steve Jobs cited at the introduction of the original iPhone was the lack of solid 3G coverage in the US; with that problem now largely remedied, another piece of the puzzle is in place.

[via Macworld]

Category: AT&T, News

Posted by Dan Moren on May 22 2008, 11:36 AM ET

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