AT&T LTE to go live in 5 cities this summer

AT&T (NYSE:T) will begin its long-term evolution (LTE) service rollout this summer, turning up networks in five major metro markets with another 10 to follow in the latter half of the year, AT&T CTO John Donovan said in a blog post on AT&T’s Website this morning. Though AT&T already has so-called 4G service in place through its high-speed packet access plus (HSPA+) networks, LTE will allow it to deliver speeds faster than any wideband CDMA technology, creating a mobile broadband service to match Verizon Wireless’s (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) new ultra-fast 4G LTE.

The initial launch markets will be Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio—all markets within AT&T’s wireline operating territory and all markets that currently support the HSPA+ service. AT&T didn’t name the 10 follow-up markets, but it’s easy to guess their locations based on AT&T’s HSPA+ deployment patterns. AT&T is only labeling a market ‘4G’ if it has enhanced fiber/Ethernet backhaul to its cell sites in that city. The enhanced backhaul provides the bandwidth necessary to deliver the increased network traffic from HSPA+ to the core and transport networks, otherwise any speed gains would be lost due to bottlenecks at the cell site. To deliver LTE’s even faster speeds, AT&T will need to have fiber connecting every cell.

In addition to Atlanta, Chicago and the three Texas markets, AT&T offers HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul in big markets such as New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, Austin, Kansas City, St. Louis, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa and Minneapolis/St. Paul, as well multiple smaller markets like Allentown, Penn., and Myrtle Beach, Fla (AT&T: 4G coverage maps). If AT&T were to focus on the top tier markets in its remaining 2011 rollout, it would have a sizable network by the start of the new year. In his blog Donovan said AT&T would cover 70 million people with LTE coverage by year end, keeping toward the low end of AT&T’s original projections of between 70 million and 75 million (CP: AT&T launch to closely follow Verizon debut). Meanwhile arch-competitor Verizon has launched LTE in dozens of markets and plans to extend its initial footprint of 110 million pops to 185 million by year end (Unfiltered: Verizon revs up LTE engine).

AT&T didn’t say over which band it will deploy its initial LTE networks, but it has licenses in both the advanced wireless services (AWS) and 700 MHz bands. While 700 MHz would be ideal for its launch, AT&T has only 12 MHz in that band in many markets, resulting in a rather anemic mobile broadband network compared to Verizon’s 20 MHz spectrum network. AWS, however, would give AT&T a 10 MHz by 10 MHz carrier to match VZW, which it could then supplement with a 700 MHz network. AT&T is attempting to buy Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ:QCOM) 700 MHz FLO TV spectrum which it plans to use in a carrier aggregation scheme to add downlink capacity to those networks.

A test LTE network in AT&T Mobile Foundry in Dallas is using both AWS and 700 MHz network carriers. A demonstration of the Foundry network by AT&T officials last week showed download speeds as fast a 29 Mb/s and uplink speeds exceeding 10 Mb/s.

As for handsets and devices, AT&T has promised 20 4G devices by the end of the year, but those included HSPA+ and HSPA devices, many of which AT&T has already begun selling. AT&T, however, can tap into a quickly developing LTE ecosystem. Verizon has launched a bevy a USB modems, mobile broadband routers and three smartphones using a 700 MHz configuration, while MetroPCS (NYSE:PCS) has two phones using LTE at AWS. AT&T won’t be able to use the exact same devices, since in its case LTE will be pared with GSM/HSPA, not CDMA, but for most device makers, designing devices for AT&T will be a simple matter of exchanging out baseband chips.

As AT&T rolls out its next generation network, it faces stiff competition—and not just from Verizon. T-Mobile (NYSE:DT) is moving forward with its own mobile broadband plans, despite the two companies’ proposed merger (CP: T-Mobile rolls out dual-carrier HSPA+ as Verizon expands LTE). On Tuesday it rolled out dual-carrier HSPA+ to 55 markets, effectively doubling its downlink speeds to devices with a dual-carrier chip. Dual-carrier accomplishes what no W-CDMA technology has been able to in the past: create big fat channels to funnel bandwidth. T-Mobile will now be able to match Verizon and AT&T’s 20 MHz carriers with 20 MHz of its own—at least to devices capable of receiving it—though it likely won’t be able to match either in average speeds (CP: Can T-Mobile’s dual-carrier HSPA+ match Verizon’s LTE?).

Sprint (NYSE:S) and Clearwire(NASDAQ:CLWR) have stalled in their WiMAX expansion, but the two are expected to announce their own LTE network this summer, using Sprint’s infrastructure and Clearwire’s spectrum to build a network rivaling all others (CP: Are we witnessing the resurgence of Sprint?). Meanwhile, their WiMAX networks continue to beat out all of the other operators’—save Verizon’s LTE--in speeds tests. WiMAX’s rankings will likely fall as T-Mobile and AT&Ts’ new networks launch. Clearwire’s network use 10 MHz carriers, half the size of the new dual-carrier and LTE networks, meaning it won’t be able to pack as much bandwidth into its connections. What Clearwire lacks in size it makes up for in quantity. It has deployed three WiMAX carriers at every cell site, giving much greater overall capacity than the other operators.