AT&T Beefs Up 3G Network Under iPhone Strain

Posted by Editor on Jan 14, 2010 in Rumors, iPhone

Electronista writes about AT&T’s iPhone network congestion:

AT&T today began ramping up its 3G network plans in a newer direction by adding one of its earliest “second layers” to its Atlanta service. The approach gives about 90 cell sites in the area a second node each and helps balance the load of data on the network, particularly during peak hours when the one node would normally be full. Atlanta had already had a certain level of duplication but now is much more comprehensive.

The rollout had technically begun with a handful of Florida deployments in November and December of 2009 but is now moving on to a more national level this year, the company tells Electronista. It didn’t provide a timetable for when these upgrades would roll out or in which cities.

AT&T’s expansion is treated as a second wave of upgrades beyond what it managed in 2009. Most of its efforts last year were centered on adding the 850MHz frequency to key areas, to expand the amount of available bandwidth, in addition to improving the actual behind-the-scenes capacity at existing nodes.

Most of the expansion is a direct response to the sheer weight put on the network by the iPhone, whose heavy data use has been largely responsible for 3G data often becoming unusable in major cities like New York City and San Francisco.

Perhaps this is more evidence that points to an iPhone ‘4G’ and perhaps a Tablet on the way. Or maybe AT&T is struggling to fix what is already broken…