Investing in our future: Wireless network improvements in 2009 and plans for 2010

John Stankey, president and CEO-AT&T Operations, updated analysts Thursday on our ongoing network investment to deliver the nation's most advanced mobile broadband experience. Wireless drives our growth and is our top investment priority in 2010.
Here are the highlights of his remarks, which covered our network enhancements in 2009 and our plans for 2010. These slides help tell the story of where we are with the wireless network and where we're going.
2010 plans
Our total 2010 capital expenditures are expected to be between $18 billion and $19 billion, 5 to 10 percent higher than 2009. These plans include an increase of approximately $2 billion in wireless network and backhaul investment, which will help ensure continued strong results in network performance.
Highlights of our 2010 wireless investment plans include:
• Aggressive deployment of fiber-optic backhaul — three times our 2009 fiber deployment — to support faster 3G speeds. A software upgrade to HSPA 7.2 was completed earlier this year. We expect the majority of our mobile broadband traffic to be riding on these enhanced backhaul connections by the end of the year.
• Expanded deployment of Ethernet-based backhaul.
• About 2,000 new cell sites.
• Adding new radio controllers and carriers at a pace that doubles deployment in 2009.
• Field trials of LTE (Long Term Evolution, the technology we'll use to deliver a 4G broadband experience to our customers).
• Aggressive plans to boost capacity and improve performance in New York City and San Francisco.
2009 accomplishments
We serve twice as many smartphone customers as our nearest competitor. This has led to more than 5,000 percent growth in mobile broadband use on our network over the past three years.
We responded to this growth by investing billions to enhance and expand our wireless network. In 2009, we:
• Added about 1,900 new cell sites.
• Installed more than 100,000 new backhaul connections, four times the number installed in 2008.
• Doubled the number of cell cites served by fiber-optic backhaul connections.
• Added high-quality 850 MHz spectrum to serve 3G customers in hundreds of markets.
• Expanded 3G coverage to reach more than 360 markets and 75 percent of the population.


These upgrades have delivered substantial results:
• We've maintained the nation's fastest 3G network.
• Our 3G voice Composite Quality Index went up 22 percent over the year, based on internal data.
• Our national dropped-call percentage rate was 98.68 percent, based on external data, which is within two-tenths of 1 percent of the only higher score in the industry.
• Broadband data download throughput (end-to-end speed) was up 19 percent by the end of 2009.
• 3G blocked calls are down 25 percent year over year, based on internal data.
• 3G dropped calls are down 22 percent year over year, based on internal data.
When you combine these network investments with the nation's-largest Wi-Fi footprint and unsurpassed lineup of smartphones and emerging devices, you can see that we're at the forefront of enabling the benefits of mobile broadband.