VZW, AT&T make final 2009 3G push

Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) and AT&T (NYSE:T) have been busy during the holidays, hurrying to finish 3G network expansions by the end of the year. As both operators prepare for another bout of ad wars attacking each other’s 3G coverage and capacity, they can both claim they enter 2010 with slightly larger footprints.

AT&T was particularly active the week before Christmas, launching high-speed packet access (HSPA) services in smaller markets across the US after focusing on larger cities in the first phases of its nationwide launch. AT&T turned on 3G services in three counties in upstate New York; in Madisonville, Ken.; in Virginia’s Northern Neck; in Birmingham, Ala.; in Monroe, La.; and in Tupelo, Miss. Over the last two weeks, AT&T also announced network coverage and data-speed enhancements in dozens of markets across the US.

Verizon Wireless 3G EV-DO network already covers the vast majority of the US population both rural and urban—a fact it has been pounding home at AT&T in advertising for the last several months—but it found a few spots where it had 1X base stations without the EV-DO upgrade. Most of Verizon’s efforts this week and last were focused in the northeast, adding new cell sites in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and states in New England, but it also added new cellsites or added EV-DO channels to existing cellsites in dozens of markets across the US, ranging from Las Vegas to smaller communities in the Midwest and Southwest.

AT&T and Verizon have adopted clear strategies in their advertising war. Verizon is hammering AT&T on its 3G coverage map, which while covering 75% of the US population looks rather thin when represented on a map. AT&T has chosen not to address Verizon’s attacks directly and instead advertises its full coverage, both 2G and 3G, which gives it a coverage map akin to VZW’s. Meanwhile AT&T has struck back at Verizon’s weak spot: capacity. While Verizon’s network is more ubiquitous its EV-DO channels can’t support the individual bandwidth of AT&T’s HSPA network, allowing AT&T to make its case for having the fastest 3G network.