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AT&T put out a press release today touting its purported improvement of 3G coverage in New York City, home to most iPhone toting hipsters.
As one would imagine, New York City with its densely packed Yuppie population and high rise urban environment has played havoc with AT&T’s already fragile network, with claims (whines?) that up to 30% of iPhone users regularly experience dropped calls.
According to AT&T the upgrade, which involves adding new layers of 850mhz frequency to cell sites in order to increase capacity, has already been rolled out to nearly all cell sites across Manhattan as well as the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.
The firm says it has also recently deployed a WiFi hotspot for AT&T customers in Times Square to try and help lower the cell congestion in the popular spot. We’re sure the hordes of tourists sending picture messages, updating Facebook/Twitter and making calls home from Times Square saying ‘Guess where I am?’ will be most grateful.
AT&T also boasted that its internal data has shown a strong voice quality improvement of 47% quarter over quarter in Manhattan thanks to recent upgrades. Of course, when quality is so bad to begin with, it doesn’t take much to improve it.
Also, when it all comes down to it, these upgrades don’t help much when your newly launched Apple super phone brings its very own reception issues to the table. After all, you can improve your network all you want, but when it comes down to it, it helps to have a phone that can take advantage of coverage when it’s available.