AT&T Wireless Keeps Expanding 3G Offering

While rumors continue to fly that Verizon Wireless is getting ready to announce expansions of their EV-DO network to New York and Philadelphia, AT&T Wireless has followed through on their promise to expand their UMTS 3G offering to San Diego and Dallas. This is not even remotely surprising, seeing as they had mentioned San Diego and Dallas as two of the original cities they were going to launch in, but later swapped them for Phoenix and Detroit (such wireless hotbeds), while promising to finish up these two cities later. Apparently setting up 3G in San Diego and Dallas wasn't quite as easy as expected. Folks in San Diego, once again, are the lucky ones as every wireless company seems to feel the need to pay homage to Qualcomm by running tests or launching in the vicinity. However, while the discussion is focused on AT&T Wireless's offering, it's worth asking what their marketing folks are thinking. Beyond the oddity of hyping up a networking based on a brand that won't be theirs soon (and, yes, I know they had to launch the networks, but they didn't have to market them), why, why, why are they advertising the network as AT&T Wireless' UMTS network? It is UMTS, but the only people who know or care what UMTS means aren't the people they're marketing effort is catered to. Their TV commercials go on "introducing AT&T UMTS." Why not just promote that it's a high-speed data connection, or at the very least "3G," since more people know what that is than UMTS?

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