AT&T gave a press release today that stated they had upgraded their 3G network to provide higher speeds. One look at the new speeds they give though, reveals that in reality no network upgrades have taken place. Unless there was a cap on the data speeds they allow, then this is the same speed that everyone should have always gotten. So, sadly the chances of seeing a real world speed increase are very slight.

“How do you make a blazing-fast 3G (third-generation) mobile broadband network even better? You make it faster. AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced a more than 20 percent increase to the top end of the company’s typical 3G network downlink speed range and a 50 percent increase to the top end of the typical uplink speed range for wireless laptop card customers. The upgrades are results of recent network enhancements, including the deployment of High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology across all existing 3G markets before the end of June.” -Press Release

While they have in fact increased upload speeds thanks to HSUPA, the downlink speeds fall in line with the 1.8mbps HSDPA we have seen from them for a while now. A real upgrade is a bump of network speed, say to 3.6mbps HSDPA. All AT&T has done here is raise the top end of their estimated speeds, to make things sound a little better.

[Via MobileBurn]