AT&T boosting capacity in New York

AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) said it completed a network upgrade in New York City that boosts capacity in the market, addressing what it has acknowledged was a weak spot in its network. 

AT&T said it took several steps to enhance voice and data coverage in the country's largest city, including adding more carriers to more efficiently manage spectrum and increase capacity, and deploying 850 MHz spectrum in the city. AT&T said that, as of the first quarter, it has seen seen two consecutive quarters of strong voice quality improvements in New York. The carrier said that in Manhattan quality improved 47 percent quarter over quarter.

The New York market has been a sore spot for AT&T. Last December, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega admitted the carrier's wireless network was not up to par in areas of Manhattan and San Francisco, and pledged to improve the network in those areas.

An AT&T spokeswoman, Jenny Bridges, clarified that this was not the end of AT&T's work in New York, and was part of the carrier's larger efforts to boost capacity in heavily populated markets.

AT&T plans to begin deploying LTE in 2011, and in the meantime is readying a nationwide HSPA+ upgrade for later this year, which AT&T executives have said will be able to deliver real-world download speeds of 7 Mbps. In the meantime, the carrier continues to deploy backhaul to cell sites it has upgraded to HSPA 7.2 technology.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Electronista post

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Airticle updated June 28 to address the nature of AT&T's network upgrade in New York City.