AT&T EDGE speed boosts thanks to Operation "Fine Edge"

Today, Gizmodo received a tip from an AT&T employee that the carrier is now making some last-minute modifications to their EDGE services in preparation for the iPhone. These modifications could potentially double the speed of their current EDGE services.

According to the source, which works on Operations at AT&T, throughput, latency, and coverage are all being improved.

"The operation, internally referenced as "Fine Edge" will continue until June 15th, and has been going on for as many as 6 weeks."
[...]
"EDGE is slow, but at least at AT&T, the implementation isn't limited by the protocol itself. Rather, the limiting factor is, according to our source, the data backend and the way the towers are configured to allocate bandwidth to data and calls. And according to an internal doc, they're dropping in more T-1s in their poorest performing towers, hoping to get that paltry 40kbps performance up to 80kpbs."

Hopefully this will relieve some of the stress that Apple has been undergoing due to complaints that they should have gone with a 3G technology like HSPDA rather than the 2.75G EDGE. It's also possible that we may see even greater speed increases ahead as EDGE can carry speeds of up to 236.8 kbit/s. Sure, that's nothing compared to the fat pipes that most of us have in our homes and offices, but lets not forget about the iPhone's WiFi capability and the ever-growing number of hot-spots cropping up these days.