AT&T dropped us a line this morning to provide an update on the company's plan to upgrade their wireless network to 7.2 Mbps HSPA, which, as the name suggests, would increase AT&T's downstream HSDPA service to 7.2 Mbps. Announced back in May, the upgrade complements AT&T's upstream HSUPA upgrades completed in 2007, which boosted upstream speeds on their wireless network to between 500 kbps and 800 kbps. In addition to the speed bump, AT&T's doubling the wireless spectrum dedicated to 3G in most of the company's metropolitan markets.

"Supporting this HSPA 7.2 initiative is AT&T’s ongoing deployment of additional backhaul capacity to cell sites," says AT&T. "These backhaul connections add critical capacity to the network to support today’s unprecedented growth in mobile data traffic as well as the future demands of next-generation 4G networks."

AT&T tells us the company will begin deployment of HSPA 7.2 in six major U.S. cities, including Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami, with initial service availability expected in these markets before the end of 2009. AT&T claims HSPA 7.2 should be available in 25 of AT&T's 30 largest markets by the end of 2010, and across 90 percent of its 3G network footprint by the end of 2011.

As AT&T consumers (particularly in New York and San Francisco) have made clear, the upgrades are overdue, and six cities by year's end may not be enough of an olive branch to placate the annoyed throngs. AT&T leads the world in terms of total number of HSDPA customers, the telecom giant serving 28.6 million HSPA customers, which accounts for 21% of all HSPA subscriptions worldwide. While AT&T is just getting to 7.2 Mbps upgrades, smaller carriers (like Rogers and Vodafone Portugal) are already pushing the technology toward the 20 Mbps mark.

According to AT&T, the company hopes to milk HSPA technology for a few more years, before beginning the migration to faster LTE technology. AT&T will begin trials in 2010, with initial deployment in 2011. This is in contrast to Verizon, who is already engaged in trials, will have 30 LTE markets launched in 2010, and hopes to have all of their markets upgraded by 2014.