While Verizon has been rolling out its faster LTE-based 4G wireless network for several months now (in fact it added nine new cities officially a couple of days ago) AT&T still working on expanding its own LTE wirless network. But if a new article at GigaOM is any indication AT&T"s version of the network could be quite speedy indeed.
GigaOM got an exclusive demo of how AT&T"s LTE network will work via a tour of the company"s Foundry space in Plano, Texas. The web site asked for a demo of the network in action and according to the article, "The speeds provided on the download side were about 28.87 Mbps, and were about 10.4 Mbps on the upload side." That"s obviously much faster than AT&T"s current HSPA+ network. If the demo speeds are to be believed, it"s also faster than Verizon"s LTE network which it says gives its customers between 5 and 12 Mbps via download side and upload speeds of up to 5 Mbps. That"s supposed to be real world speeds, by the way, and not some theoretical speed. GigaOM said that "AT&T wanted to model real-world situations for the people coming into the Foundry space."
While the speeds may be impressive, for AT&T customers its all about the service and we will have to see when the LTE network goes live for real people whether both the speed and the reception matches the demo speeds. The LTE network is supposed to go live sometime in the middle of 2011.