AT&T, the company we all know and love hate, has stated in their quarterly earnings call that they plan to beef up their network quite heavily this year. Beyond what they already spend to upkeep their network, they plan to spend an additional $2 billion or so (for an expected total of $18-19B in 2010) simply to make their network stronger. Admitting their 3G coverage isn’t good enough is most likely due to the increased attack ads by Verizon in terms of network coverage. And I have to say, we should all thank Verizon for being so blunt in pointing it out to AT&T; maybe that’s what they needed. The iPhone has certainly been the device to point out their weaknesses in coverage, and the launch of the iPad in two months or so isn’t going to help.
With this extra money being put towards the network, we can only hope it helps. While the iPad will give consumers a bit more of a choice in networks in terms of having a prepaid AT&T plan and allowing unlocked SIM cards, the iPhone is still unfortunately locked into AT&T. For the people stuck with this network, a refresh in terms of speed and reliability would certainly be met with open arms. For AT&T’s sake, I just hope it’s not too late. Once (if ever) the iPhone is available on more networks, we may see an influx of people leaving, so AT&T needs to do all that they can before that happens.
Via [Mashable]
You don't unlock SIM cards. You unlock phones.
I don't think speed is going to be one of the more serious issues , it's really just making sure 3G data is available where verizons is, verizonz 3G is way slower than AT&Ts; … And even though AT&Ts; Edge is well mapped and almost spot on as far as reliability, people want 3G…