"We’ve invested $75 billion in our wireless and wired
networks over the last four years—more capital invested in the U.S. than any
company in any industry. And we plan to invest $19 billion in our wireless and
wireline networks and other capital projects this year," Donovan wrote.
"The investments we’ve made to evolve our mobile broadband network in
recent years, plus what we have planned for the future, put our customers in
position to benefit fully from a host of coming mobile broadband
innovations."
AT&T has arrived late to the 4G party. Sprint, via
Clearwire, began offering WiMax-based 4G in 2008, years ahead of its
competitors. In November 2010, T-Mobile began calling its HSPA+ network 4G, and
a month later, Verizon officially launched
its LTE 4G network in 38 markets and 60 airports—a far less modest kickoff
than the five cities proposed by its closest rival.
Seemingly following T-Mobile's lead, AT&T began a few
months ago to refer to its own HSPA+ network as 4G, while continuing to promise
an LTE 4G network rollout by mid-summer. (Sprint and Clearwire—which
Sprint owns a majority share of—have acknowledged they'll likely also
transition to LTE, if not just run it alongside the WiMax network.)
With high-data-use tablet and smartphone sales quickly
rising, carriers are feeling pressed to speed their rollouts of 4G
technologies, which are more efficient on the carrier end and can offer
consumers speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G. Pressed for additional spectrum
with which to expand, AT&T has made a controversial bid to purchase
T-Mobile, the nation's fourth-largest carrier, for $39 billion in cash and
stocks.
Federal regulators
have tasked AT&T and T-Mobile with proving that the deal would benefit
Americans before they'll give it their approval. Critics argue that it will
create a duopoly that will reduce competition amongst Verizon and AT&T,
negatively affecting customers and slowing innovation.
"Consumers all across the nation will share in [the
benefits of mobile broadband] as the transaction will allow the combined
company to build out an advanced new 4G LTE network and bring state-of-the-art
mobile broadband to over 97 percent of the American population—more than any
other provider and far more than AT&T alone was planning before the
transaction," AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in written testimony
submitted to a Senate subcommittee investigating the proposed purchase.
The only thing now that can slow AT&T's current cycle of
investment, innovation and growth, Stephenson added, is a lack of spectrum—which T-Mobile can provide.
AT&T CTO Donovan, in his blog post, said that AT&T
has upgraded its mobile broadband speeds five times over the last few years and
increased its speeds by 40 percent over just the last two years.
"We’re positioning to deliver a great mobile broadband
experience in the near term with HSPA+," he
wrote, "and a growing LTE footprint."
Enterprise Mobility News & Reviews 
