By Charlene Dean
Broadband consumers in rural Nevada had best get up to speed in terms of fourth generation 4G Long Term Evolution LTE technology. It’s coming, more noticeably in some cities and towns than in others, and AT&T is bringing it with its acquisition of T-Mobile. The deal, approved by the two parties, AT&T and Duetsche Telekom, is expected to finalize in late 2011 or early 2012.
AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile USA will combine assets to add capacity to its existing service, improve networks for both companies’ customers and most importantly, it is a certain solution to the impending exhaustion of wireless spectrum.
Spectrum is, in essence, the Federal Communications Commission and government controlled range of airwave frequencies that carry signals for everything from TV and radio to cell phones and baby monitors.
With today’s technology, AT&T Nevada President Stephanie Tyler said, “We’ve seen an 8,000 percent increase in data traffic over the past four years. By 2015, usage will be eight to 10 times what it was in 2010.”
T-Mobile alone does not have a clear path for delivering 4G LTE.
She said the high demand for mobile broadband has been the driving initiative for AT&T to skip over 3G technology and use combined company assets to launch the 4G LTE services. Still, there will be remodeling of facilities and upgrading of infrastructure scheduled to begin as soon as the company gets closure on the deal from government regulators. She said new jobs will be created when the expansion gets underway.
Some of the benefits to having 4G LTE technology include faster connection speeds, fewer lost or interrupted connections, both in Internet and cell phones, and data service improvements.
The technology will have less of an impact on places like Las Vegas and Reno, more on towns like Pahrump, and will give the fastest service on the market to very rural locations in Nevada, some of which have never had anything more than dial-up Internet connections and sketchy cellular service.
Tyler said price increases aren’t something consumers should worry about.
“This is such a competitive market and we are just keeping pace with everyone who offers these expanded broadband capabilities. The consumer will just be getting more for their money,” she explained.
According to an information packet Tyler left for reference, Sprint/Clearwire has the number one spectrum position; Verizon is deploying 4G LTE to a vast majority of the U.S. Together, MetroPCS and Leap serve 22 of the top 25 markets. AT&T is committed to advanced technology and service to more than 97 percent of the U.S. population.
According to a 2010 report from the Government Accountability Office, wireless prices declined 50 percent from 1999 to 2009, “a period when carriers combined to achieve efficiencies.”
The growth of airwave-dependent devices like smartphones and tablet computers has been unprecedented and according to the FCC, “mobile data demand will exceed available capacity by 2013.”
Tyler said the AT&T/T-Mobile expansion will take five years to “build out.”
When asked where technology is leading when available spectrum runs out, she replied, “I have no idea.”
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- Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – President AT&T-Nevada Stephanie Tyler paid a visit to Pahrump to speak with employees and stop by the Pahrump Valley Times to talk about the AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile. The deal is expected to close late this year or early 2012.
Do not let yourselves be over-hyped by the term “4G”. Its just a different signal protocol to allow more voice and data calls per radio and is not some digital magic as proponents would have you believe. This should help AT&T with their coverage and will be a big project. They acquired T-Mobile to get their spectrum and nothing more.
The antique business models of shackling people into contracts to gain their “loyalty” via punitive fees needs to go. The idea of buying a certain phone only from certain carriers is also a old-fashioned idea that needs to be revised. After all, you do not buy your microwave or refrigerator from your power company, do you?
LTE (4G) is faster than GSM (3G).
They need to stop over selling their networks, when 3G first came to Pahrump I had great service, then everyone and their kids signed onto AT&T with their shiny new iPhones and now I’m lucky to get any signal.
I know a growing customer base is great for them, but if they can’t provide their existing customers the bandwidth they signed up for then tgey should put a cap on how many customers they can have in a given location.
I’m with you. I don’t care how much they boost performance for all those hand held devices they are selling. When am I going to stop losing my wireless internet connection on my laptop???? Their service has been abysmal for over a year now.
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AT&T doesn’t even deliver their advertised speed on DSL in Pahrump. I’m sure they’ll spend a lot promoting 4G, but it’s likely that the speed won’t be there consistently.
“Still, there will be remodeling of facilities and upgrading of infrastructure scheduled to begin as soon as the company gets closure on the deal from government regulators. She said new jobs will be created when the expansion gets underway.”
Thousands of t-mobile employees will be fired when the merger takes place. ATT wants the towers & bandwidth from T-mobile and will shut down TM forcing customers over to a more expensive ATT.
T-mobile is so far behind the curve in Pahrump. They don’t even have 3G out in this area. I had to SC T-mobile to get fast broadband.
Just what we need, less competition in the mobile communications market!
Let’s give a hardy welcome to the return of Ma’Bell.
Now perhaps Verizon will get on the ball and have decent service on 160. I know when I had AT&T I had service almost the whole way into Vegas. Now with Verizon its spotty at best.
I made the change because I do a whole lot of internet related stuff with my phones, and Verizon is faster in town and in Vegas.. but was disappointed to find that the service on 160 stinks in most areas.
Having a 4g phone, I can tell you that its WORLDS faster than my old 3g phone.
True, AT&T does/did have better coverage on 160 but after 1 year of having to do the commute to Vegas and the inability of using my phone in my house at Artesia I said so long to AT&T. Tried Sprint last year and it sucked as bad as AT&T while Verizon gives me great service at home but still lacks 160 coverage even though there is a tower on Spring Mtn. The Verizon clowns told me to email customer service and they would ‘fix it’ which was a joke. Still lacking ~10 miles of coverage fro just before Tecopa turn off to the bottom of the mountain into Vegas. Also I get a lot more service to Tonopah on the 95 and the 93.
AT&T stinks absolutly the worst service you could have all they wanted was t-mobiles tower I had at&t at one time out here all it ever did was drop calls and mail me big bills because of there crappy service! I have never had any problems with T-Mobile but that will change now as soon as I start having problems I will cancel my cell service period
You think they are bad try Keyon, still junk after all these years. And it’s expensive
Keyon just died AGAIN. 15 minute wait time for a phone call, now using my Virgin Mobile MIFI.
I’ve had AT&T mobile service for laptop and it is superb where I live at north end of valley. I’m very happy with AT&T and have had the service for about 7 months with no interruption at all. I’m glad to learn of AT&T equipment/service upgrade and hope all subscribers have improved service wherever they live and/or commute.