AT&T used its Developers Summit at CES to lay out the advantages of its LTE network and how that’ll help developers. In a comment directed at Verizon, the carrier points out it’s the only one with 4G speeds on both its HSPA+ and LTE networks. AT&T rolled out HSPA+ in 2010 as a stopgap measure while it rolls out its 4G. This configuration gives the iPhone 4S three times faster download speeds than other carrier networks (like Verizon Wireless which runs on EV-DO).
The carrier is working on its network and made 150,000 improvements in 2011, more than three times the number of improvements it made in 2010. It also added 500 sq miles of coverage and hung over 80,000 new antennas. It’s made a difference as AT&T claims it now has a call retention rate of 99% on its HSPA network. AT&T will continue to roll out LTE, but did not announce the list of new markets that’ll get LTE in 2012. The carrier expects to blanket all its customers by the end of 2013.
Besides hardware, AT&T also announced its plans to offer developers tools to leverage it’s growing 4G network. AT&T confirmed it has joined the OpenStack community and will deliver an open source cloud-based development solution for businesses. AT&T is also making available APIs for messaging, speech, location, monetization, contacts, storage as a service and more. AT&T wants these APIs to be available worldwide and is working with other carriers to develop open APIs that’ll work on across a variety of markets.
[Via AT&T ]