EARTH SCIENCES

AT&T* customers in Philadelphia and surrounding communities including southern New Jersey are expected to experience improved mobile broadband coverage and voice performance as a result of continued investment by AT&T. The company announced today network improvements made to enhance the wireless capacity and performance of its local mobile broadband network.

Since the start of 2011, AT&T has made more than 1,000 wireless network upgrades in the greater Philadelphia area. Some of the enhancements in Philadelphia, the western suburbs and southern New Jersey include:

Deploying enhanced backhaul connections to more than 450 cell sites. Combined with HSPA+ technology, these backhaul deployments enable 4G speeds.

Adding capacity or an extra layer of frequency - which is like adding lanes to a highway - to more than 600 cell sites in the following areas:

Philadelphia - Overbrook, University City, West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, Mount Airy, Fern Rock, Frankford, Tacony, Richmond, North Philadelphia, Center City and Old City

Delaware County - Upper Darby, Lansdowne and the airport area

Atlantic County - Atlantic City, Ventnor, Brigantine, Margate, Pleasantville and Absecon

Cape May County - Cape May, Wildwood, Ocean City

Installing 13 new cell sites to improve network coverage.

Upgrading 15 existing cell sites to provide faster mobile broadband speeds.

"More than ever before, customers look to wireless communications to stay in touch with family, friends and business colleagues," said J. Michael Schweder, president, AT&T New Jersey and Pennsylvania. "We're working to make this possible by investing in new wireless coverage in the area. In addition, our recently announced agreement to acquire T-Mobile USA represents a major commitment to strengthen and expand our network. If approved, this deal 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 more than 97 percent."

"Our goal is to deliver a network experience that mobilizes everything for customers," said Tiffany Baehman, vice president and general manager, AT&T greater Philadelphia market. "The ongoing investment we're making in Pennsylvania and New Jersey is designed to increase coverage and reliability, and to provide advanced services to our customers so they can do more with their wireless devices."

AT&T plans to support the build or upgrade of thousands of cell sites nationwide to increase network speed, coverage and reliability for both mobile voice and broadband services. AT&T also plans to install additional radio "carriers" at thousands of cell sites nationally this year, enabling new layers of spectrum capacity to carry larger volumes of mobile broadband traffic. Additional capacity helps support rising mobile data traffic volumes, which have increased more than 8,000 percent over the past four years.

AT&T recently launched "Focus: Philadelphia," which provides visitors a peek into AT&T's wireless network enhancements made since the beginning of the year. Enhancements include new cell sites, broadband speed upgrades, capacity upgrades and network connection upgrades. The site also provides a map of area AT&T stores, a map of area Wi-Fi hotspots, useful tips, a localized Twitter handle and device reviews. You can visit the site at http://focus.att.com/philly .