Telecom giant AT&T will spend some of its $19 billion U.S. capital budget this year to add more cell sites and other enhancements to make its Connecticut network faster and more reliable, officials say.
AT&T Connecticut President Rodney Smith said Friday its plans to upgrade dovetail with its recently announced $39 billion plan to acquire smaller rival T-Mobile USA.
“Our story is getting even better for Connecticut,” Smith said in a statement. “In fact, this deal, if approved, means that we’ll be able to expand the next generation of mobile broadband – 4G LTE – from our current plan of 80 percent of the U.S. population to 95 percent.”
In Connecticut, AT&T will add, among other things, about 15 new cell sites, along with upgrading another 750 existing sites to enable 4G voice-data transmission speeds.
Smith did not specify AT&T’s 2011 Connecticut capital spending.
However, he said AT&T invested more than $750 million in its Connecticut wireless and wireline network from 2008 through 2010.
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