4G LTE Expansion Will Help Give AT&T Customers and FirstNet Subscribers Better Access to Mobile and Fixed Wireless Internet
HARLAN, Ky., Jan. 14, 2020 — AT&T* customers and FirstNet subscribers in Harlan County got a big boost in wireless connectivity. We’ve added 7 new cell towers to enhance the area’s 4G LTE coverage and help give residents and first responders faster, more reliable wireless service. Our investment will help customers get the most out of their mobile devices. The towers are located in Baxter, Cawood, Coldiron, Cranks, Totz and Wallins Creek.
The towers also include equipment to enable Fixed Wireless Internet service. This innovative service delivers an internet connection with download speeds of at least 10Mbps and upload speeds of at least 1Mbps. The connection comes from a wireless tower to a fixed antenna on a customer’s home or business. This is an efficient way to deliver high-quality, high-speed internet to customers living in underserved rural areas.
The towers used to provide this service are connected using AT&T fiber optics. AT&T has nearly 1.5 million strand miles of fiber optics covering Kentucky, which enables the company to offer a wide variety of products and services delivering the high-speed connectivity Kentucky businesses and residents need.
“This is a great day for East Kentucky,” said Harlan County Judge Executive Dan Mosley. “In today’s world, high-speed connectivity is vital to our workforce and economy. I’m excited to see the investment and growing interest in bringing enhanced connectivity to our rural Kentucky communities.”
We know how important it is for our customers to stay connected. That’s why we’re also boosting network reliability and capacity as we expand our network. This helps Kentucky residents get the best possible experience over the AT&T network wherever they live, work and play.
“We’re committed to providing our customers fast, reliable, highly secure connectivity and the network expansion in Harlan County is a result of that commitment,” said Amy Scarborough, regional director, external affairs, AT&T Kentucky. “We’re always working to provide better coverage and we’re investing in our wireless network to accomplish that.”
These upgrades will also benefit public safety and first responders on FirstNet – public safety’s dedicated communications platform. FirstNet is bringing public safety communications into the 21st century with new, innovative capabilities to help those users stay safe and save lives.
FirstNet is built with AT&T in a public-private partnership with the First Responder Network Authority. It’s designed to help first responders in Kentucky and across the country connect to the critical information they need – when they need it – so they can keep themselves and the communities they serve safer.
AT&T in Kentucky:
AT&T invested nearly $800 million in its wireless and wireline networks in Kentucky between 2016 through 2018. This drives upgrades to reliability, coverage, speed and performance for residents and business customers.
Additionally, AT&T has coordinated with communications providers, the Kentucky Department of Education, and every school district across the Commonwealth to extend fiber-based, high-speed internet to all 172 school districts in Kentucky. This helped establish connectivity speeds that allow Kentucky to be the first state to meet a national benchmark set in 2012 and offered a clear indicator that there is fiber-optic infrastructure in every county in the Commonwealth.