No future LTE in wisconsin?

[althe3rd]

I have been enjoying relatively fast and reliable 3G and hspa+ in Madison, Wisconsin for sometime now and haven't had any major reason to leave AT&T.

However, I have been looking into getting an LTE phone probably by the end of the year and since AT&T hasn't announced any plans to put LTE in Madison I find myself in a conundrum.

Verizon has our area well covered with LTE (with speed tests showing 24Mbps) but naturally their 3G service isn't nearly as fast as AT&T's here.  Verizon download speeds on 3G are around 500kbps where as AT&T on hspa+ is giving me closer to 2Mbps per second.  Pretty substantial difference not to mention Verizons 3G restriction of no data and voice at the same time.

If AT&T was planning on putting LTE here soon I would stick with them but if I will get LTE coverage 98% of the time on verizon I might find myself switching for the first time in nearly 8 years.

Anyone at AT&T care to elaborate on any future LTE coverage here before I find myself too tempted and switch for superior network speeds?

[youngjm ACE - Professor]

There are some articles I found via Google but here is a link to ATT's network site.  http://www.att.com/network/

I am not seeing any announcements yet for Wisconsin.

[Tpeltz]

AT&T holds 30Mhz of the 700Mhz band in Dane county. That is more than enough to deploy 4G LTE in your area. This will probably occur next year or late this year. In comparison, Verizon has a nationwide 22 Mhz slice of 700Mhz spectrum. So in your county, AT&T actually has more spectrum for LTE and therefore may perform better than Verizon. 

[squirrel14]

I would not leave at&t just to get Verizon's LTE. As it was pointed out, at&t has more capacity than Verizon, thus, at&t will have faster speeds. It may take a little while for at&t to get LTE to your area, but hey, if its going to be better I think it would be well worth the wait.

[althe3rd]

It does sound like AT&T LTE will probably be faster than Verizon's but it still makes me wonder how long I will have to wait to get LTE in our area on AT&T. If its likely to be here by sometime in early 2013 then that's not bad at all. But if it's going to be years then I might want to switch.

[squirrel14]

I would recomend waiting on at&t. Even on their "4g" HSPA+ network I get faster speeds than Verizon's LTE network.

[sandblaster]

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althe3rd wrote:
It does sound like AT&T LTE will probably be faster than Verizon's but it still makes me wonder how long I will have to wait to get LTE in our area on AT&T. If its likely to be here by sometime in early 2013 then that's not bad at all. But if it's going to be years then I might want to switch.

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Should be sometime in 2013. This comes from the AT&T network news page: AT&T expects its LTE deployment to be largely complete by year-end 2013.

[brkaras]

Actually i was having issues with my phone recently and AT&T tech told me they are installing LTE in milwaukee as we speak and should be deployed in the coming months. Not sure if they were blowing smoke at me and making excuses for poor data coverage bu...

[brkaras]

AT&T has the spectrum in Wisconsin on lockdown i can't see why they would push off deploying it. I was told by Public Relations for Wisconsin/Illinois that milwaukee is the 21st largest market if AT&T can't see why they would wait

[brkaras]

Check FCC filing...they purchased 700mhz spectrum from redwood wireless which gives them access to all of southern WI and MN. They already have 6mhz E Block spectrum for LTE download back up. They are building it right now...stay tuned

[shines34]

My concern is at&t won't tell us anything. We have waited and waited. I have been with at&t for over 7 years and my three Lines will be off contract in October and we are seriously considering leaving for US cellular or Verizon, don't want to but I need at&t to tell or show us a commitment to truly improving Wisconsins network.

[brkaras]

LTE will be here long before October just not sure if they will finish it before that they are talking about a complete build out from Milwaukee to Madison and ...Racine, Kenosha to Chicago.

I would just be patient...I've seen US Cellular LTE and its nothing compared with AT&T. Verizon network is constantly down and CDMA network gets congested with large amounts of people. I was the only one who could use my phone at summerfest last night

[JIM2003]

I live in Kenosha, and just got an LTE device from AT&T. Personally I am just fine with their "4g" for now. The way I see it, I will save battery life not having LTE on, and the "4g" speeds are already fast enough for me. Although I would definitely like to see how fast lte is, as I have never tried it.

[scottadus]

ATT just turned on LTE in madison today!! holy crap im getting 32 mb

Thats faster then i get on charter internet.

WOW

US Cellular with your 10 mb lte

[Inappropriate content removed]

[jsamurai]

^ Source?

[jsamurai]

Woah, nevermind. I have it too! Nice!

[mvadu]

I noticed it last night too.. Its awesome, its way faster, and turned my Lumia 920 even better phone. THank you AT&T

[jsamurai]

scottadus seems to have a personal vendetta against US Cellular

[scottadus]

They are a good network but they are always somehow behind

They dont even have visual voicemail

Unacceptable and the same devices on us cellular dont work right

I think their software engineers are amateur

[NetworkIdea]

Unless I'm mistaken, it must be back off now.  I had the signal earlier today when I was having breakfast, went out of town... and when I came back, back to H+.  

I  don't mind the speeds, but it was nice to see LTE for a little while.  Perhaps it was a test?

[scottadus]

Nope still on

[althe3rd]

It's on for me still but I notice it isn't very wide spread in Madison. I can get LTE at work but not in the surrounding areas or at home yet. I imagine that just may be because its still being rolled out.

[NetworkIdea]

I hope that's the case (not yet done with rollout).  It would be pretty cheezy to have LTE in "Madison" only covering Madison proper when a good percentage of what people think of as madison is actually Monona, Verona, Fitchburg, Middleton, etc.

I can get LTE signal when I'm at the gas station across from my workplace, but not at my workplace.  I can't get it at home, which is less than 5 min away from said gas station - and technically still in Madison.  

[brkaras]

Just be patient guys. It was a solid 5 months from then testing at Miller Park to the full launch. They are most likely trying to get coverage to reach from Madison straight to Milwaukee and down to Chicago. Big area to cover

[Applegeek97]

Anyone know of LTE coming to the Port Washington Area? I'm just north of the Milwaukee LTE buildout, and it drives me nuts everytime I have to go back to HSPA + from LTE!!

[bdresch]

Looks like they are working on Appleton WI. I get 2-3 bars of LTE when I drive through the center if town. It drops back to H+ at my house 5 blocks south. Hopefully the 2-3 bars is just because all the towers aren't lit or they bring them on at lower power first.

[Applegeek97]

That's good to know. Hopefully it'll extend around to Fondy and Sheboygan. I travel to these locations enough too! It would be nice to have consistant LTE the whole way, or in the Cities at the least.

[no25]

They need to get it going in Central WI

[Applegeek97]

I agree. Hopefully they do. Someone I know said they heard AT&T is planning a buildout of LTE across the entire Lake Michigan Shore and I-43 and consistant HSPA+ "4G" in Door County for the tourists. I haven't seen that yet though.

[Avatar26]

Appleton's LTE footprint seems to be growing daily. I have seen speeds of up to 30 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up. Keep it rolling AT&T!