AT&T Prepping Major Announcement for July 16, Could be LTE-Advanced Rollout

Wireless carrier AT&T has been sending out emails to members of the press teasing a major July 16th announcement, in which "What's next in wireless" will be revealed. Other than that tagline, AT&T isn't saying what it has up its sleeve, be it a new smartphone product, service, or something else. However, there's reason to believe the announcement will focus on AT&T's rollout of a faster LTE-Advanced network.

Computerworld claims it's sent numerous emails to an AT&T spokesman over the course of the past few weeks inquiring about the wireless carrier's planes for LTE-Advanced. Oddly enough, each email went unanswered, perhaps suggesting that something is afoot. Due to AT&T's continued silence on the subject, analysts suspect the wireless carrier is prepping the launch of an LTE-Advanced network.

AT&T Sign

The benefit to consumers is a faster network with sometimes double the speed of regular LTE. One way this is made possible is by combining multiple radio channels to improve download speeds, a method known as carrier aggregation.

AT&T has been fleshing out its LTE network as of late and now covers around 300 cities, though Verizon Wireless still leads the way with 500 cities under its LTE belt. If LTE-Advanced isn't in AT&T's cards for a July 16 announcement, another possibility is that of Voice over LTE (VoLTE).