AT&T to expand & upgrade 3G wireless network
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AT&T said Wednesday that it will expand its 3G footprint and upgrade the network to give users a boost in upload speeds.
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New 'Turbo-3G' HSPA mobile services from AT&T Wireless and 3 Sweden feature fast upload speeds.
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AT&T Inc.  said on Tuesday it  will invest more than $750 million in 2007 to accelerate the  delivery of global Internet Protocol services and solutions to  businesses and multinational companies in key markets  worldwide.
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Cingular Wireless, the largest cellphone service provider in the United States, will upgrade its high-speed data network, allowing faster downloads than are now available
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Banners hanging at&#160;Macworld Expo&#160;on Monday read, &quot;2008: There&#39;s something in the air,&quot; suggesting wireless news to come in CEO Steve Jobs&#39; keynote Tuesday morning.Faster cellular service for the iPhone is already on its way later this year, AT&amp;T&#39;s top executive reportedly said in November, but Apple could go beyond that plan and extend high-speed wireless WAN (wide-area network) capability to its MacBook notebooks and even a rumored &quot;ultramobile&quot; computer.Many consumers have been clamoring for more speed on the iPhone since it was announced a year ago with support only for Wi-Fi and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), a version of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) that generally runs below 200Mbps. U.S. iPhone carrier AT&amp;T Wireless and other operators around the world already have a set of faster systems called HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) that can deliver more than 1Mbps.At the same time, wide-area wireless has been moving into PC notebooks and smaller PC-like devices. The big notebook vendors, including Dell, Lenovo, and Hewlett-Packard, have rolled out products with built-in 3G. And the Asustek Computer Eee PC and some other small UMPC (ultramobile PC) devices are slated to ship with WiMax.Apple hasn&#39;t made the leap. Mobile Mac owners can hook up to Wi-Fi hotspots but have to buy dongles or other add-on devices from third parties to get fast wireless elsewhere. Offering a built-in 3G card would give MacBook users access to broadband in far more locations.However, that leap would take Apple into a market that hasn&#39;t attracted a large percentage of notebook buyers, analysts said.At least in the U.S., 3G radios are associated with a particular carrier and usually sold along with two-year data contracts. Users keep notebooks longer than they do phones and don&#39;t want to lock them down to a particular carrier, said Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin. In addition, many notebooks are purchased by enterprise IT departments, which demand more flexibility, Golvin said. He doesn&#39;t expect to see another iPhone phenomenon.&quot;I don&#39;t think that laptop users would be as interested in aligning themselves formally with one particular carrier,&quot; Golvin said. One alternative would be to build in a chip that could handle more than one carrier and 3G technology, he added.Avi Greengart of Current Analysis believes Apple&#39;s proven ability to streamline could change the picture.&quot;They have not been in the forefront of 3G on notebooks. However, it wouldn&#39;t surprise me at all if they came out with a simplified offering that just made a lot of sense and became the catalyst, as the iPhone is,&quot; Greengart said. Apple simplified the iPhone experience for customers by sticking with one carrier and letting subscribers sign up with AT&amp;T through iTunes.Apple could also jump-start the market by offering an alternative to the expensive monthly service model that carriers typically use, said Gartner&#39;s Ken Dulaney. Most consumers don&#39;t travel frequently enough to justify spending US$30 or more per month for cellular service on their notebooks, but they might be willing to buy a system with built-in 3G and pay for service as they need it, he said. Verizon has a little-known offering like this, in which users can pay $15 for 24 hours of service, according to spokesman Jeffrey Nelson.Because of its greater mobility, a rumored Mac that&#39;s smaller than a notebook but bigger than the iPhone would be an ideal candidate for 3G. If the company unveils it on Tuesday, that product could lead Apple&#39;s new wireless charge.But that &quot;something in the air&quot; could be a number of other things, too, analysts said. Apple is expected to make its SDK (software development kit) for third-party applications on the iPhone available next month, Greengart said. And the iPhone could gain GPS (Global Positioning System) capability, or some iPods could get Wi-Fi, he said. As always, it&#39;s all speculation until Jobs speaks.&#160;
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Cingular Wireless, the largest U.S.  wireless telephone company, said on Tuesday it would upgrade  its network next year to handle high-speed data transmissions.
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Sierra will provide modules that add 3G wireless telecom functions to a new Intel ultramobile PC platform
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AT&amp;T Inc. has spent $50 million to beef up its relatively slow wireless network in anticipation of the heightened activity expected to follow the iPhone's debut next week, but any customer who isn't wowed by the new gadget will find it costly to cancel the service.
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Cingular Wireless LLC will begin deploying a speedier wireless Internet service next year, a move made possible by the network capacity gained with the recent acquisition of AT&amp;T Wireless as Cingular tries to catch up with to catch up with rivals led by Verizon Wireless.
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The wireless carrier is expanding with acquisition of a network service in the Southeastern U.S. and Caribbean.
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Sprint has awarded a $3 billion contract to Motorola, Nortel and Lucent to upgrade its wireless network to handle high-speed Internet traffic over mobile phones and computers.
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AT&T Inc. and Psion Teklogix Inc.  will jointly market the first ruggedized wireless handheld for 3G networks in North America.
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AT&T and Psion Teklogix said they will market the first ruggedized wireless handheld for 3G networks in North America.
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Sierra will provide modules that add 3G wireless telecom functions to a new Intel UMPC platform.
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Just how much will the iPhone boost AT&T's business?
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Cingular Wireless LLC said Monday that AT&amp;T Corp. and AT&amp;T Wireless have extended their licensing agreement in preparation for Cingular&#39;s acquisition of the telecom giant&#39;s former unit.
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Now that&#160;WiMax has been certified as a form of 3G mobile data infrastructure, Sprint Nextel is changing its tune about the WiMax network it plans to launch commercially in April.Last year when Sprint was shopping around for a &quot;4G&quot; technology, it had a lot to say about how 4G would do something 3G networks couldn&#39;t. WiMax won out as its 4G network of choice. But in a keynote address Thursday at CTIA Wireless I.T. &amp; Entertainment in San Francisco, an executive of Sprint&#39;s WiMax business, Xohm, sang a different tune.&quot;I think we spend entirely too much time talking about the Gs,&quot; said Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at Sprint. Last week, the Radiocommunication Sector of the International Telecommunication Union certified WiMax as a 3G technology, providing a seal of approval many governments require for carriers to deploy it. Wider deployment generally means lower equipment prices, which helps service providers.That&#39;s not to say the carrier no longer wants to differentiate WiMax. In his presentation, Gude played up the wide band of spectrum Xohm will be able to use, which he said will cut down on delays for individual users the same way a multilane freeway can move faster than a two-lane highway even when the speed limit is the same. In the real world, a lot of people want to use the network at the same time, he said.But more important is the business model of the two networks, Gude said, characterizing the traditional cellular business as more closed and controlled, while Xohm&#39;s business will tap into the dynamics of the open Internet. The company is opening itself up to partners for application development as well as connected devices, he said. The best known of these deals, announced in July, was&#160;an agreement with Google to develop a variety of Internet-based services.Sprint hopes a wide range of devices, including cameras, media players, and in-car electronics, ultimately will connect to the WiMax network. Instead of Sprint stores, they will be sold in the most logical places for their device types, such as consumer electronics stores. The first devices to come for Xohm next year will be wireless cards for notebook PCs, which Gude expects to be sold in the computer departments of electronics stores.The company will also have open API for third parties to develop services to run on the network. As an example, Gude envisioned a video portal that users could navigate using the five buttons traditionally found on video players. Xohm will probably charge for some of what it offers to third parties, but its aim is not to stifle innovation, he said.Sprint isn&#39;t getting out of its cellular business now that it&#39;s starting Xohm -- which it expects to reach 100 million U.S. residents by the end of 2008 -- but seems to be looking at it in a different light now.&quot;We are a content distribution industry,&quot; Gude said. It&#39;s just that for most of cellular&#39;s history, all the content has been user-generated and consisted of talking.