LiveWire

The only thing that has frustrated me about Snarky my iPhone, is the impossibly slow :AT&T “edge” date stream network. You especially felt the dial-up speed when you were hooked up to a wifi and were reminded of the real world. Well, it look like all that may be changing. let’s hope so.

iPhone Users May Benefit From AT&T’s Purchase Of 700 MHz Spectrum

Apple iPhone users struggling with the relatively slow speeds of AT&T’s EDGE network now have something fast to look forward to: faster data rates to download data and video.

AT&T (NYSE: T) won approval this week from the FCC to purchase 12 MHz of spectrum in the 700-MHz band in markets that cover 196 million potential subscribers across the United States. AT&T, which has an exclusive agreement to market the iPhone, paid $2.5 billion to Aloha Partners for the spectrum.

“I expect AT&T to use UMTS/HSUPA as an interim technology,” Joe Nordgaard, managing director of Spectral Advantage, told InformationWeek. “HSUPA is a huge increase in overall throughput over EDGE.”

IPhone users would find many advantages if AT&T introduces high-speed technologies for the popular phone, Nordgaard said. He notes that iPhone users are often limited to speeds of 50 to 110 Kbps, while HSUPA can typically provide downlink speeds of 3 Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.5 Mbps…The 700-MHz spectrum, which can easily pass through walls and requires relatively few base stations, also lends itself to efficient delivery of video.

Woo hoo!