AT&T to Complete HSPA Network Upgrade This Year

Humberto Saabedra

AT&T Vice-President of Network Architecture Hank Kafka has made definitive statements regarding the carrier’s progress in upgrading its 3G W-CDMA enabled markets.

Speaking at a roundtable meeting sponsored by the GSM Association, Kafka stated that AT&T had 255 markets with HSDPA access in 2007 and expects to add more with a total goal of 350 by the end of the year, with that figure including the top 100 markets in the country.

Regarding the HSUPA upgrade announced last year, he also stated that all current 3G markets would have the upgrade by the middle of the year, which increases peak upload speed to 1.4Mbps with a constant rate of 500-800kbps, up from the 300-500kbps of HSDPA and increases peak download speed to 3.6Mbps with a constant rate of 600-1400kbps.

AT&T is also investigating the possibility of deploying 14.4Mbps HSPA hardware, but Kafka was quick to dismiss any notion that the carrier would increase data speeds to such levels.

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Journalist since 2006, initially covering the retail wireless sector before pivoting to anime and manga trade reporting in 2008. Founder and publisher of AnimeNews.biz (2008–2017), followed by a 13-year tenure at Crunchyroll News (2011–2024) and launching K-Comics Beat with Comics Beat in 2024. Now stripping away consumer noise to build independent, data-backed intelligence desks focused on cross-border licensing telemetry, production committee balance sheets, and industrial supply-chain forensics.

Date Updated Category General News

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