Windows Phone Thoughts: AT&T to Offer 20Mbps Wireless Data By 2009

"AT&T's Chief of Mobility, Ralph de la Vega, was recently quoted as saying that his company intends to offer data speeds of up to 20Mbps on its network by 2009. AT&T has previously committed to using the yet-to-be-standardized LTE technology for its next-generation 4G network. AT&T is currently testing an HSPA upgrade that will offer speeds up to 7.2Mbps, and already offers PC Cards that will support it. AT&T is in a unique position because these speed enhancements are merely software upgrades to existing equipment, and would require limited resources to deploy, as opposed to implementing an entirely new network."



Jumping from 7.2Mbps to 20Mbps is a significant bandwidth increase. In theory by the year 2009 my HSDPA enabled phone would be able to download whatever I wanted quicker than my current cable connection from Comcast. Hopefully with the increased data speeds AT&T will finally get around to releasing some video conferencing enabled devices, preferably of the Windows Mobile variety.