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AT&T has announced today that it’s added support for new cell sites in downtown San Francisco, a city notorious for its infamously stringent network-building rules.
Coverage in San Francisco has been a thorn in AT&T’s side since the carrier’s exclusive iPhone launch back in 2007, when the carrier received sharp criticism for poor reception and dropped calls.
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How could it be that the big city for high-tech products like Apple’s iPhone also offered some of the worst coverage in the nation? It doesn’t help when it takes years to approve a new cell tower.
Over the years, AT&T (and other carriers) has invested in improving its network presence in this difficult city, adding a total of 24 new cell sites last year. In my experience, AT&T’s speedy, usually double-digit 4G LTE network has wiped away much of the network’s previous 3G troubles; however, CNET readers have reported higher LTE speeds elsewhere in the country.
AT&T is using an upgraded distributed antenna system, or DAS, in the new cell sites. The carrier also reported that it spent $2.4 billion improving service in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past two years.
According to a RootMetrics report from August 2012, AT&T edged Verizon for the faster download speeds.
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