AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile creates largest U.S. carrier

20.03.2011

With the acquisition, AT&T will immediately gain cell sites that would have taken on average five years to build without the transaction, the carrier said. It said its mobile data traffic grew by 8,000% over the past four years, and will be eight to 10 times greater in 2015 than it was in 2010.

Both companies use a GSM-based HSPA network, although T-Mobile announced HSPA+ speeds in January that would technically make it faster than AT&T. AT&T is moving its subscribers to LTE in the next two years, expecting the first rollouts later in 2011.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Topic Center.