Having successfully completed its May-announced High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 Mbit technology upgrade across its 3G cell sites countrywide, AT&T recently announced that its maximum 3G downlink speed has been increased from 3.6 Mbps to 7.2 Mbps.

The upgrade, marks the beginning of AT&T's several initiatives planned for an overall enhancement of its network strategy, will result in a two-fold increase in the speed of mobile data throughput, as well as perk up the carrier's connection reliability.

However, noting that the software upgrade is only one part of the proposed overall improvement and will, thus, not make much difference in data speeds for consumers, AT&T specified that the announced upgrade to HSPA 7.2 will offer "a better overall customer experience by generally improving consistency in accessing data sessions."

AT&T further elaborated that, over the coming two-year period, it will undertake additional measures that will "dramatically increase" the number of high-speed backhaul connections to mobile sites, chiefly those with fiber-optic connections; thereby upping capacity from mobile sites to the carrier's backbone network.

Further adding that backhaul improvements are currently in progress in the six US markets - Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami, AT&T said: "We anticipate that the majority of our mobile data traffic will be carried over the expanded fiber-based, HSPA 7.2-capable backhaul by the end of this year, with deployment continuing to expand in 2011."