AT&T today announced its LTE network now covers more than 300 million POPs.
Hitting that milestone puts the carrier ahead of the timetable it announced in 2012 along with its Project Velocity IP (VIP) initiative. At that point, AT&T promised 300 million people covered with LTE by the end of 2014.
AT&T says that traffic on its network has increased 2.5x since the 2012 announcement. From 2008 to 2013, the carrier said it has invested more than $140 billion in building out and updating its network.
AT&T now joins Verizon Wireless as the only other U.S. wireless provider to cover more than 300 million people with its LTE network. Verizon’s LTE network covers 303 million POPs.
Both AT&T and Verizon are deploying LTE on AWS spectrum to supplement their initial LTE builds, both of which reside in the 700 MHz Band.
As of the second quarter, T-Mobile’s LTE network covers 233 million people and Sprint’s LTE network covers 254 million people.
