AT&T: Our 4G LTE phones are better than your 4G LTE phones

By on Oct 12, 2011 at 10:50 AM
mobile October 12, 2011

We’re seeing a trend here. AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega on Tuesday stated that the carrier’s upcoming 4G LTE smartphones will be thinner and more power-efficient than comparable devices currently on the market. Speaking with CNET’s Roger Cheng during the CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference in San Diego on Tuesday, the AT&T chief said the company will begin launching LTE phones in the fourth quarter that utilize a new technology allowing for slimmer profiles and longer battery life. The availability of this technology, the report states, dictated the carrier’s launch schedule for the phones. Read on for more.

De la Vega explained that the technology — circuit-switch fallback, or CSFB — allows LTE devices to switch back and forth between 4G and 3G signals more efficiently than Verizon Wireless devices, which use two separate radios that must each be powered. ”We had to wait longer, but we think it’s worth the wait,” de la Vega said, adding that AT&T will be the first company to offer smartphones that utilize the new technology.

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  • Anonymous

    Eager to see how Sprint’s LTE is going to stack up. They did some joint tests with Clearwire last year and posted some impressive results… we’re talking a 90.1 mbps kind of impressive.

    That’s about twice as fast as Verizon’s 2010 LTE network tests (They topped out at ~50 mbps).

  • Anonymous

    And Verizon’s upcoming 4G LTE devices will be more power efficient and thinner.  And Sprint’s upcoming 4G LTE devices will be more power efficient and thinner.  And EVERY PHONE COMING OUT IS GOING TO BE MORE POWER EFFICIENT AND THINNER.

    • Guest

      Exactly.  When AT&T doesn’t have anything to brag about… they take a very OBVIOUS statement and make it sound like something special.

      Every year phone will become better and better.
      Duh.

      It’s the only thing AT&T *CAN* say.  Do you think they are going to remind everyone that they keep rating DEAD LAST in surveys?

  • Bob

    Poop

  • Anonymous

    AT&T: Americas Most Hated 4G Network.

  • http://www.Verizonsucksass.com Johnny Test

    But, Da La Vegas, your network sucks

  • Anonymous

    I don’t care what technology you have ATT.. the only way I’ll even consider giving  you my business would be if your company is bought over by someone else.  Yes, that is how much I hate you.

  • Anonymous

    They use the same technology just a different frequency. 

    So let me get this straight, newer chipsets will be small and more energy efficient than much older chipsets.  Wow, AT&T is so insightful.  As if every carrier isn’t going to incorporate them as well.  Here is another prediction of my own.  Future Verizon CPUs will be faster and more energy efficient than current AT&T CPUs.

  • Anonymous

    They can’t even do 2G phones let alone LTE phones. 

  • http://www.vgchartz.com SuperChunk

    However, Verizon’s LTE actually works, exists, and will always have a bigger footprint… and probably faster.

    Plus, I hate you.

  • http://twitter.com/WillieFDiazSF William Diaz ✔

    Everyone is talking trash about AT&T and their network … and here is one more comment talking trash too ;)

    The reason AT&T had to wait so long for the 3G/4G GSM/LTE chipset is yes because their network sucks, but because they want to have their HSPA+ and LTE to be operated to the user as ONE SINGLE NETWORK without a real perceived difference. They also needed the chipsets to automatically switch on a whim because neither network is built out like Verizon LTE is, that way it will pick the best network for the needs.

    Verizon did it differently and doesnt have to have a phone that swaps instantly, because BOTH Verizon 3G and 4G are powerful and covered in more places than AT&T even has 3G alone. 

    Ralph is saying “Hey, our network is gonna suck, so we need something that swaps back and forth faster, so people dont notice how bad it is. 4G is still 4G, even if its 3G right?”

  • http://twitter.com/jrcrow79 EK

    Umm..so why did the CEO of att wireless quote himself 2 months as saying “we are at least 3 years behind Verizon’s network”..rofl…Go Team Verizon!!

    • Bullet Tooth Tony

      uhh… what does where they stand in their rollout phase have to do with the phones they’ll be using on that network?

  • blake shively

    NEW TECHNOLOGY IS BETTER THAN OLD TECHNOLOGY!? . Im glad that at&t  cleared that up for me I totally thought that older technology would be better than the newer stuff coming out. I guess im just going to have to settle on using 4g NOW on my droid bionic knowing that my at&t friends will have better phones than me in a year what a bummer.  This is the weakest accuse that at&t has ever used for why they are taking so long on LTE.   

  • Anonymous

    ONE BIG UGLY FACTOID: In addition to this news not only are LTE/EVDO hand-offs taking, what, like 2.5 minutes? if at all, future advertising blitzes by AT&T&T-Mo (its gonna happen) is going to beat Verizon and Sprint about the head and shoulders senseless with the following LTE scenarios:

    CDMA/EVDO will be a tech albatross around both their necks and something they wont be able to replace in terms of full coverage experience for a long, LONG time (expect at least 4 more years of CDMA/EVDO)!

    1. Hand-offs from LTE to EVDO will be a horrible customer experience especially when everyone is hooked on HD video calling/streaming, Netflix, Hulu, and all the tons of video streaming services that will run rampant in 2012 and beyond.

    2. Users bouncing between AT&T&T-Mo HSPA+/LTE on the other hand won’t most likely see much of a difference (i.e. T-Mo’s HSPA+ is close to the current iteration of LTE in terms of speed) couple with this improved hand-off switching technology.

    Its like taking a 599 from highway to highway instead of highway to (EVDO) dirt road. LOL, I can see the ads now. Who in their right mind would drive a Ferrari on a dirt road anyways? Sayin…

    • Ashleigh

      AT&T needs that special handoff technology because they have a whopping 5 markets and limited coverage in those at that. Verizon has much broader LTE coverage and is growing much faster and soon enough their whole 3G footprint will be LTE so handoffs won’t even be relevant. Even if AT&T covers their 3G foot print with LTE the coverage will have so many holes it will still be laughable.

      • Anonymous

        AT&T or AT&T&T’s foot print?

        See what I did there? ;^p…

      • Ashleigh

        T-Mobile basically covers the same foot print as AT&T so it will make the areas covered more robust but does nothing for these areas both of the carriers have shoddy coverage.  I was with AT&T/Cingular for 6 years and simply got sick of areas that didn’t even have 3G coverage or would constantly bounce back and forth between edge and 3G.  Not to mention all the dropped calls.  It’s sad to see them get excited over AT&T LTE when they have half-ass coverage for 3G as it is.

      • Anonymous

        “soon enough their whole 3G footprint will be LTE so handoffs won’t even
        be relevant” Say What now? Really? Whoa, slow down, that’s allot of
        Billions you’re spending for them, especially since it is more expensive
        to upgrade and cross ovet to LTE for Verizon. See Verizon milked
        CDMA/EVDO for far to long and now have to spend BIG to finally upgrade
        and cross over to GSMs evolution path (LTE). They should have dumped
        CDMA when TDMA got dumped. Notice how UMB died on the vine? Old
        CDMA/EVDO SUX and will be an albatross that will hang around for at
        least 4 more years. Watch!

    • Anonymous

      That is what I keep saying, Rev- A cannot  even do netflix HD. See, sometimes you might want to turn 
      LTE off to save battery life , but when you’ll do , you’d feel better if you fall back on a HSPA+ than evdo -Rev A.

  • Philbert

    This is dumb. The reason why current LTE devices are big and power-hungry is that there is no SOC that integrates LTE capabilities (so you need at a minimum the SOC plus a LTE baseband). Sure, the CDMA phones require 2 basebands (CDMA + LTE), but I bet that there will be a next-gen SOC that integrates everything. Another real benefit will come from the die shrink to 28nm, which no one will have until everyone has it.

    Also, I would make a bet that Verizon switches voice to its LTE network as soon as it has enough infrastructure to support LTE everywhere, which will remove some of the reliance on legacy CDMA networks.

  • Anonymous

    Read the title people. Hate AT&T or not, they have GSM as their base which means , any of their phones will work pretty much anywhere in the world, while Sprint and VZW need special models. 

    • Anonymous

      Big deal.  Buy an old AT&T smartphone, unlock it, and it’ll work fine abroad.  I kept my Captivate for that very reason after switching to Verizon.  I’m no’t going to pay AT&T or Verizon’s ridiculous roaming rates so it doesn’t matter what phone I use abroad.

    • Tim242

      GSM sucks. That’s why att is the king of dropped calls. It holds fewer calls per channel, and signal doesn’t travel as far, or penetrate buildings very well. CDMA is mich more reliable. Btw, I work for att and have to listen to bitching all day.

      • Anonymous

        It’s not so much GSM as it is AT&T’s network sucking.

        Take the same phone on a European network and it will be a night and day difference.

      • Tim242

        That doesn’t change the technical limitations of GSM.

      • Anonymous

        Tim242, look how old GSM is too.  It wasn’t designed for data use, though it was retrofit for it.  GSM’s standard started in 1982 and the spec was done before Qualcomm even started developing CDMA (started in 1990).  Uses completely different tech than CDMA.  Yes, you’re using 200Khz channels vs 1.25MHz (minimum) channels and using TDMA vs. spread spectrum.  How the two handle handoffs is also a lot different too.   CDMA is a better tech because it started later and could take advantage of newer tech that didn’t exist when GSM was first developed.  Of course, CDMA is superior which is why the newer standards are based on it.  However, it doesn’t change the fact that GSM works well for what it is.

        It also still doesn’t change the fact that AT&T’s network sucks and phones that suck here work flawlessly in Europe – whether they’re WCDMA based or GSM based.

    • Guest

      Do you REALLY travel “all over the world” that often?

      Like most people… we vacation in Europe, once every 10-20 *YEARS*.

      Does anyone know what percent of the USA travels to Europe MONTHLY????  WEEKLY????  EVER????

      • Anonymous

        It doesn’t matter if that’s what YOU do.  Truth is a lot of business is international these days and people travel the globe weekly.  There are people that could care less if their phone doesn’t work in Korea or Germany.  There are those that do.  Clearly it’s enough that companies see value in offering world capable phones.

  • Zack

    T-mobile to the rescue!!!!!

  • Anonymous

    Right, im going to listen to anything ATT says after claiming they already have 4g, what is lte to ATT? 5G?

  • Kenny A Hyde

    So when are the AT&T LTE phones coming? I can upgrade in December and would love to ditch this BB Torch. Even contemplating breaking contract for VZW…

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