AT&T Spends billions on Florida infrastructure

    AT&T invested nearly $2.8 billion in its Florida wireless and wireline networks from 2009 through 2011 with a focus on improving the company's mobile broadband coverage and overall performance of its networks.
During 2011, AT&T made nearly 3,850 wireless network upgrades in four key categories in Florida.
     These enhancements include:

• Activating more than 50 new cell sites to improve network coverage.
• Deploying faster fiber-optic connections to nearly 1,650 cell sites. Combined with HSPA+ technology, these deployments enable 4G speeds. (AT launched its new 4G LTE network in Orlando in January 2012, and in the Tampa-St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Bradenton areas this month).
• Adding capacity or an extra layer of frequency to cell sites – like adding lanes to a highway – with the addition of more than 2,000 of these layers, or "carriers".
• Upgrading more than 150 cell sites to provide fast mobile broadband speeds.

     "We're working hard to make Florida the best state in the nation for business, creating the right climate to prompt further investment from industry leaders like AT&T," said Florida Secretary of Commerce Gray Swoope, who serves as president & CEO of Enterprise Florida, the state's principal economic development organization. "AT&T's efforts are also helping Florida maintain a strong infrastructure that can meet broadband and other vital needs of the state's businesses and citizens."
     CNN Money recently recognized AT&T for enhancing its wireless network. Last year, AT&T completed 150,000 network enhancements across the country, more than triple the year before, giving customers more capacity and faster speeds, as well as improving 3G dropped-call performance by 25 percent.
     "Florida is a great place to do business," said Marshall Criser lll, president, AT&T Florida. "With fierce internal competition for capital, AT&T's strong and sustained investment in our Florida wireline and wireless networks demonstrates our confidence that Florida's elected leaders have created an economic environment that rewards investment with incredible opportunity to succeed."