Company builds new cell sites, boosts capacity and adds fiber optics to enhance networks
AT&T* invested more than $1 billion in its Wisconsin wireless and wireline networks from 2008 through 2011 with a focus on improving the company’s mobile broadband coverage and overall performance of its networks.
During 2011, AT&T made more than 775 wireless network upgrades in four key categories in Texas. These enhancements include:
Activating 15 new cell sites or towers to improve network coverage.
Deploying faster fiber-optic connections to more than 250 cell sites. Combined with HSPA+ technology, these deployments enable 4G speeds**.
Adding capacity or an extra layer of frequency to cell sites – like adding lanes to a highway – with the addition of nearly 350 of these layers, or “carriers”.
Upgrading 175 cell sites to provide fast mobile broadband speeds.
“A more advanced mobile broadband experience drives economic growth, stimulates jobs and equips Wisconsin businesses to meet the network demands of today and tomorrow,” says Scott Vander Sanden, AT&T Wisconsin president. “We’ve significantly ramped up our wireless investments to enable an experience that offers Wisconsin consumers better speed, better reliability and better availability.”
CNN Money recently recognized AT&T for enhancing its wireless network. Last year, AT&T completed 150,000 network enhancements across the country, more than triple the year before, giving customers more capacity and faster speeds, as well as improving 3G dropped-call performance by 25 percent.
“In today’s world, specifically rural communities in Northern Wisconsin, broadband is the new infrastructure that is creating jobs and economic opportunity. By connecting people, broadband is accelerating commerce and growing economies,” said State Representative Erik Severson (ROsceola). “I applaud AT&T’s continued investment in its wireless networks to ensure Wisconsin residents and businesses can communicate and perform at optimal levels.”
“Our goal is to deliver a network experience that mobilizes everything for customers,” said Dave Fine, AT&T’s vice president and general manager for Wisconsin and Illinois. “The ongoing investment we’re making in Wisconsin is designed to increase coverage and reliability, and to provide advanced services to our customers.”
AT&T plans to support the build or upgrade of thousands of cell sites nationwide to increase network speed, coverage and reliability for both mobile voice and broadband services. In addition, AT&T plans to install additional radio “carriers” at thousands of cell sites nationally, enabling new layers of spectrum capacity to carry larger volumes of mobile broadband traffic. Additional capacity helps support rising mobile data traffic volumes, which continue to increase at a rapid pace.
AT&T operates the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network*** with nearly 30,000 hotspots in the U.S. and provides access to nearly 190,000 hotspots globally through roaming agreements. Most AT&T smartphone customers get access to our entire national Wi-Fi network at no additional cost, and Wi-Fi usage doesn’t count against customers’ monthly wireless data plans.
For more information about AT&T’s coverage in Wisconsin or anywhere in the United States, consumers can visit the AT&T Coverage Viewer. Using the online tool, AT&T customers can measure coverage quality of coverage from a street address, intersection, ZIP code or even a landmark.
