AT&T planning to boost wireless service
If you're an AT&T Inc. wireless subscriber, you soon could get faster downloads and better reception, even if you're in your basement.
The company is expected to announce today that it's investing about $90 million this year to boost its wireless phone network and U-verse Internet Protocol television services statewide.
That means AT&T is adding 60 new cell sites and rolling out its higher-speed wireless network in more towns. There are about 1,470 cell sites operating statewide.
AT&T is unveiling its third-generation (3G) wireless broadband network, which offers access to higher speeds for laptops with access to the Internet and e-mail from anywhere within the network. Customers with 3G phones also will have quicker access.
"We had an increase in data traffic with the iPhone and other data devices and video share and the demand on the network has been incredible," said Terry Stenzel, AT&T vice president and general manager for wireless operations in Illinois and Wisconsin.
The company already has deployed 3G service in Chicago, Naperville and parts of downstate. The new services will allow subscribers to get mobile TV on LG's new Vu phone, he said.
Data services are big business for wireless service providers. AT&T's wireless customers, for example, sent more than 620 million multimedia messages and 44 billion text messages during the first quarter of the year -- both more than double a year ago, according to AT&T's first-quarter earnings report.
And that translates into big money. Wireless data revenues grew 57.3 percent to $2.3 billion in the first quarter, compared to a year ago. Data includes Internet access, e-mail, messaging, data access and media bundles, the earnings report said.
Still, AT&T's U-verse had struggled in many suburbs, which prevented the service for a few years while seeking to collect fees from AT&T and require permission to build through right-of-ways, just as they required cable companies. But that struggle ended after Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich signed the Cable and Video Competition Law on June 30, 2007, which allowed telecommunication companies to compete with cable with phone, Internet and television services. That's when AT&T moved ahead with its U-verse rollout here.
"We still need to get a few more permits," Stenzel said of U-verse. "It's now just about building it and getting people to see it."
The rollout of the higher-speed services have created about 1,400 new jobs in Illinois, Stenzel said.
However, the wireline part of AT&T has been restructuring with layoffs companywide. Stenzel and a spokeswoman couldn't provide the number of layoffs, a net job gain for Illinois, or how it would affect its Midwest headquarters in Hoffman Estates.
"AT&T continues with aggressive deployment plans, both for U-verse broadband video/data offerings to consumers and, on the wireless side, enhancing cellular service experiences," said David Weissman, senior telecom analyst for Zacks Investment Research Inc. "U-verse is AT&T's market attack against cable operating competitors. The company rollout enables bundled voice, data and video solutions that compares or exceeds the cable operator's plans and services."