AT&T 4G LTE Arrives In Jefferson City Area!

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CENTRAL MISSOURI GETS LTE! WHO NEEDS T-MOBILE ANYWAY?

Last friday while at work, something came as a bit of a surprise to me. I found out that 4G LTE was launched and pumping out super speed Internet juice to Jefferson City devices.

One by one, I had several fellow geek buddies at work come running to me to tell me that the 4G LTE icon lit up on their phone. I was shocked, and super excited.

At first, I thought to myself, "maybe it's a mistake, and they accidentally switched the logo on". But there was no mistake about it.

2 friends were downloading at speeds of 25Mb/s right here inside the office. The best speeds under optimum conditions that we had received before was 11Mb/s under HSPA+ service.

Apparently, the system is still being tweaked. Several people have already told me that their download speeds have increased over the past week. So we are officially on the high speed map!

I had worried about how long it would take for the expansion after the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile was shot out of the sky by our fabulous regulators. I was a strong proponent of the merger, and I knew it would slow the LTE expansion process when it failed. But who needs T-Mobile now?

We don't!

Even if the T-Mobile merger did go through, it may not have sped up the expansion for Central Missouri anyway. At the time, T-Mobile did not even have a 3G tower in our area. We were paying for HSPA+ "4G" service, and getting Edge Network speeds. I'm guessing that the same amount of work would still have been required to build the LTE infrastructure here.

But I digress... AT&T 4G LTE is here in Jefferson City, and I couldn't be more excited! Next month I hope to get my hands on a Samsung Galaxy S IV when my upgrade becomes available. That will be perfecct timing to pick up my new device right when the LTE network has just gone live!

No more bragging, my Jefferson City Verizon friends! You're not the exclusive Central Missouri LTE service any more! Well, U.S. Cellular already took that title away from you. However, pretty soon I'll have the ability to "one-up" you... when I call you on your smartphone and surf at LTE speeds at the same time! Sorry, you won't be able to surf while you're taking to me.

;-)

Carlton Flowers
AT&T LTE #CentralMo #Fanboy #Loyalist

 

--------Official Press Release---------

AT&T 4G LTE AVAILABLE IN JEFFERSON CITY

Customers to benefit from nation’s fastest 4G LTE network on the latest devices

JEFFERSON CITY, MO. APRIL 3, 2013 — AT&T* has turned on the nation’s fastest 4G LTE network** in the Jefferson City area, including Holts Summit, Taos, Wardsville and California, bringing customers the latest generation of wireless network technology. Watch here to see several of the benefits AT&T 4G LTE provides, including:

“We continue to see demand for mobile Internet skyrocket, and our 4G LTE network in Jefferson City responds to what customers want from their mobile experience — more, faster, on the best devices,” said John Sondag, President of AT&T Missouri. “This announcement demonstrates our ongoing commitment to bring consumers and businesses the most advanced communication network. Important infrastructure investments such as these are due in part to the good business climate in Missouri.”

AT&T invested nearly $2.15 billion in its Missouri wireless and wireline networks from 2009 through 2012. AT&T launched 4G LTE in Farmington in April 2013, St. Louis in April 2012 and Kansas City in November 2011.

AT&T’s 4G Network

AT&T’s innovation and investment has resulted in the nation’s largest 4G network, covering 288 million people with ultra-fast speeds and a more consistent user experience. Our 4G LTE network delivered faster average download speeds than any of our competitors in PCWorld’s most recent 13-market speed tests.

AT&T’s 4G LTE network delivers speeds faster than many other mobile Internet technologies, as well as multiple innovations that optimize the network for performance. Our network’s radio components are placed close to the antenna at most cell sites, instead of inside the base station, which helps minimize power loss between the base station and antenna and, in turn, improves the performance of our 4G LTE network. The network also is designed with its core elements distributed across the country, which helps reduce latency, or the delay when using the Internet, because your request isn’t traveling as far.

Even as AT&T continues to expand its 4G LTE coverage, customers can get 4G speeds outside of 4G LTE areas on our 4G HSPA+ network, unlike competitors, where smartphone customers fall back to slower 3G technologies when outside of LTE coverage.

AT&T’s focus to deliver the best possible mobile Internet experience goes beyond 4G to embrace additional connection technologies. AT&T operates the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network**** including more than 32,000 AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots at popular restaurants, hotels, bookstores and retailers, and provides access to more than 402,000 hotspots globally through roaming agreements. Most AT&T smartphone customers get access to our entire national Wi-Fi network at no additional cost, and Wi-Fi usage doesn’t count against customers’ monthly wireless data plans.

AT&T also is a leading developer of Distributed Antenna Systems, which utilize multiple small antennas to maximize coverage and speed within stadiums, convention centers, office buildings, hotels and other areas where traditional coverage methods are challenging. 

Over the past five years, AT&T invested nearly $98 billion into operations. Since 2008, AT&T has invested more capital into the U.S. economy than any other public company. In a July 2012 report, the Progressive Policy Institute ranked AT&T No. 1 on its list of U.S. “Investment Heroes.”

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

** Limited 4G LTE availability in select markets. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. Claim based on a comparison of U.S. national carriers’ average 4G LTE download speeds for Android™ and Windows smartphones and iPhone 5. 4G speeds not available everywhere.

*** 4G LTE device and data plan required.Learn more about 4G LTE at att.com/network.

****A Wi-Fi enabled device required. Other restrictions apply. See www.attwifi.com for details and locations. 

 

The Next Giant Set To Fall - Paradigm Shift Coming?

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ON THE BRINK OF CHANGE - THE FUTURE OF TV

Newspapers thought they were invincible. They were rendered obsolete. The telephone companies bit the bullet next. Movie rental companies got moth balled. Then the bookstores. Is television the next slaying ground for a behemoth that needs to be laid to rest?

Yes. And the dinosaur is called the cable company.

I really never thought it could happen until now. Cable television is about to be put out to pasture. The cable companies are teed up and ready to be whacked right down the center of the obsolescence fairway.

All the signs are there, and the cable giants know that the clock is ticking. This will be the last hoorah for cable television as we know it. And the day that LTE coverage blankets the entire map, the final nail will be put in the coffin.

Have you ever thought about the fact that the average household pays well over $2,000 a year for TV programming, all while being given the worst possible service at the highest possible price? Up until now, we've been held hostage.

I've had fairly decent luck with my cable service provider. Customer service is decent, but response to problems is not. I've had instances where we were forced to wait 3 weeks for a service tech to fix an outage. We had no recourse, because there was very little competition.

But what will put this problem over the edge in short order is the fact that the majority of programming is now available over the Internet. I've never considered going the route of replacing my cable TV with a Roku box or something similar, because of one big missing piece of the programming puzzle...

Sports.

There's no way I could cut my cable TV and live without Monday Night Football. Or watching Mizzou basketball live. Or the NBA playoffs. Or the Minnesota Lynx with my cousin Maya Moore.

But times are a changing. The NFL now provides subscription services that allow you to watch games online. So do several other major sporting networks.

With this last significant piece of the puzzle quickly filling in, I could realistically pull myself away from my addiction to my cable TV service and just continue on with high speed cable Internet. But I would still be somewhat stuck... until LTE comes to Central Missouri.

The advent of LTE will set the captives free, while providing high speed wireless internet service at double the speed of the big fat wire. And how many times does the cellular network go down in comparison to cable TV? Answer that yourself.

My best guess is that LTE service from AT&T will be in my neck of the woods sometime this year. Verizon Wireless already has blazing fast 4G LTE service in Central Missouri as we speak, and wireless devices run on their network faster than you can even imagine.

The cable company won't give up easy, though. They have just rolled out a 105Mbps package for those that want ridiculous download speeds. But that comes at a cost.

The cable company had to decommission several analog channels to swap out the bandwidth needed to provide the 105Mbps service. All they are doing is running several frequencies in parallel to get the desired new high speeds. But their ability to expand beyond this point is finite.

Unless research & development comes up with a breakthrough way to compress data and get more speed out of the existing network of cables, their doomsday is already within sight. Plus they have to fight against a decrepit, aging infrastructure that takes an enormous amount of maintenance.

If 4G LTE service arrives before the cable TV providers figure out a way to continue ramping up speeds, it will be too late. All things being equal, why would I stick with the less dependable and overly expensive big fat wire when I could possibly combine my cell phone service with wireless Internet for my computer?

Unless something catastrophic happens, or the cable company has a huge trump card, I give it a year before I dump my cable TV service in the same trash can that my land line phone service is sitting in right now.

The changes we see in the next year should be exciting. And we might be hearing a resounding THUD as the giant we call cable TV breathes its last breath and goes the way of the newspaper, the record player, the telephone, the bookstore, the DVD rental store, and the portable CD player.

Carlton Flowers
Technology Prognosticator

 

"Dare To Compare" Why Sprint Unlimited Is Useless

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SRPINT THINKS DATA CAP-FREE BUT CRAPPY SERVICE DEAL IS GOLDEN

Sprint is launching a campaign on their "Dare To Compare" webpage that attacks AT&T over data caps versus their unlimited data package.

Is it just me, or did someone forget to tell Sprint that unlimited crappy service is not better than limited service that works? The last time I checked, Sprint has the outdated dinosaur "4G WiMax" network that they are phasing out, while the company attempts to make the change to 4G LTE.

Right now, Sprint has a boatload of money tied up in their WiMax network. It's not helping the company at all, being forced into abandoning their version of 4G service for the newer LTE standard. Give them a year, and we'll see what happens as they promise to unlease a nation-wide LTE network.

I was a Sprint customer for 10 years, even before they were Sprint (Bell Telephone was the name in our market). I enjoyed their service, but had to let them go as AT&T nailed the first smartphone market with the iPhone, leaving the other carriers in the dust.

But the main reason that forced me to finally switch from AT&T to Sprint was the simple fact that there exists a huge dead spot in Sprint coverage where I work. Our offices moved in 2005 from central Jefferson City to the East side of town, into a dead zone. AT&T had great coverage, so I had to make the switch.

I haven't regretted making the switch. I've been very satisfied with AT&T in Jefferson City, and nationwide as a whole while traveling. I'm on pins and needles as AT&T expands LTE coverage in the State of Missouri, starting out in the St. Louis market area.

I'm hoping Sprint makes it through the pinch and ends up with a viable LTE network. Competition is good in this industry, and the more healthy competitors we have in the field, the better the products will be. But for now, if I were Sprint, I wouldn't be "daring" to compare anything until they get their network together.

Carlton Flowers
Callin' 'Em Like I See 'Em

 

Why You Shouldn't Buy Your Samsung Galaxy S3 From Sprint

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SPRINT CUSTOMERS BUYING A GALAXY S3? SWITCH TO AT&T

If your heart is set on buying the monumental Samsung Galaxy S3 superphone and you are a Sprint customer, I have a bit of advice for you before you spend your money and lock into a contract: SWITCH TO AT&T.

That's pretty blunt advice. And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash or be overly critical of Sprint. Nor am I just "promoting" AT&T. But it's for your own good, and it's due to the hardware that is built into the new Galaxy S3.

Here's the deal...

The Samsung Galaxy S3 has an LTE 4G radio built in. Sprint does not carry any 4G LTE service. Their version of 4G is "WiMax". It's a completely different standard on its own separate hardware network.

WiMax service is going the way of the dinosaur, and that is why many smartphone manufacturers are getting away from it. Samsung has decided not to invest in equipping the Sprint version of the SGS3 with a WiMax radio.

If you do choose to get a Galaxy S3 from Sprint, just understand that you won't be able to run it on their WiMax network. As a matter of fact, you won't even get to run it on the enhanced HSPA+ 4G network (the 2nd-generation of 3G service) like you can through AT&T and T-Mobile.

With your new Sprint SGS3, the best you will get is "EVDO" 3G service on the CDMA network. If you don't know what that means, all you need to know is that it old, slow, and outdated. EVDO 3G is slower than regular GSM 3G service, and it is far slower than HSPA+ "4G" service.

This all might sound confusing, sure enough. But to make it simple, you have 2 types of 4G service with AT&T: They are HSPA+ 4G, and LTE 4G. HSPA+ is the enhanced 3G network which has been enabled to run at tremendously higher speeds than that of standard 3G. 4G LTE is a completely new hardware network that is absolutly mind-boggling blazing fast in download speeds.

So if you are putting your money down on a Galaxy S3 from Sprint, you better understand that you are buying into a network that is basically two generations old when compared to AT&T, Verizon, or even T-Mobile.

If you are patient and you just love Sprint as a provider, you'll eventually get 4G LTE service. But it could be a while before you see it. They do plan on rolling out several major cities this year, but the majority of customers will not see LTE 4G service for a year or two.

And now you know the ressssst, of the story!

Carlton Flowers
Good Day!

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