The carrier will start offering service in these regions in April/May

Mar 12, 2012 22:11 GMT  ·  By

Major carrier AT&T has just announced it will roll out 4G LTE services to 12 additional locations in the following months. Customers living in St. Louis will be among the first to benefit from the new 4G LTE services.

With Internet speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G, LTE is the next-generation technology preferred by North American consumers. The new technology allows users to stream, download and upload at extremely high speeds.

In this regard, AT&T offers customers some of the newest LTE-enabled devices, including Samsung Galaxy Note and HTC One X smartphone, as well as Pantech Element tablet.

Aside from St. Louis, AT&T confirmed new 4G LTE service would be available in 11 additional locations such as: Naples, Fla; Bloomington, Lafayette and Muncie, Ind.; Baton Rouge and New Orleans, La.; Akron, Canton and Cleveland, Ohio; Bryan-College Station, Texas; and Staten Island in New York City.

According to AT&T, the new services will be launched gradually in April and May, as well as early summer.

So far, AT&T has two 4G networks, LTE and HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul, which means that when customers travel outside LTE coverage area they will still be able to experience high-data speeds thanks to the HSPA+ support offered. Other carriers in the United States offer only 3G network when customers are outside LTE coverage area.

AT&T is expected to roll out 4G LTE services in more regions by the end of the year. More 4G-enabled device will be introduced as well.

AT&T customers in St. Louis can look forward to even faster mobile Internet speeds very soon, on our leading lineup of smartphones and devices. We're excited to bring St. Louis all that 4G LTE has to offer. Our teams will be working hard across the city toward our upcoming launch,” said Nancy Garvey, AT&T's vice president and general manager for the Greater Midwest Region.