AT&T advertises phones with 4G LTE capability, but until now Ball State students were not able to utilize that service.
Muncie was recently among a list of 10 cities across the country to start receiving the high-speed cellphone service.
"I think it's great. I want all of the carriers to get 4G here in Muncie," said Stefen Kaur, assistant administrator for emerging technologies and media development at Ball State. "It's good for the students. It's good for the residents of Muncie that are not Ball State students and anybody that has the ability to use that technology."
Tammy Rader, spokesperson for AT&T, said the extension is part of the company's desire to bring the network to major markets across the country.
"Our 4G LTE rollout in Muncie is an example of our efforts to address areas where we're seeing high demand, like near college campuses," she said.
According to WebProNews an online news source for tech, social and business topics, AT&T, unlike other carriers, has a dual-layer of 4G LTE with an HSPA+ network. This network is like a transition from 3G to 4G service, Kaur said.
Because there is a large difference in speed between 3G and 4G networks, there is often a drop in data transfer when the device travels between the two networks. HSPA+ will eliminate this problem.
Another issue is that different phones are compatible with different networks. Having the dual-layer will help with this, because if a phone, like the iPhone 4S, is only compatible with HSPA+, then it can take advantage of that network.
Rader said she cannot share any sales forecasts for AT&T, but she predicts that it will bring even faster speed to Muncie customers.
Although senior dietetics major Kari Evans does not have a 4G phone, she said the fact that Ball State is going to receive the network will encourage her to buy one.
"I think it's the need to be able to keep up with everybody," she said. "Plus my phone isn't the most recent in the world."
Evans said she thinks what AT&T is doing is a positive effort because "it seems like communication and technology is always evolving."
Freshman psychology major Taylor Hurst has a Verizon phone. He said he wants to buy an AT&T 4G phone because of the network, but he doesn't have the money for it.
"My phone service isn't that great; the quality isn't that great," he said. "My Internet's pretty slow. I could get some use out of it [the 4G service from AT&T]."
Jonathan Huer, director of emerging technologies and media development at Ball STate, said the new 4G service will not affect Frog Baby Apps.
He said mobile applications are on the phone, and they use the bandwidth that is provided. For this reason, the new service does not affect Frog Baby Apps specifically.
"App developers are going to use everything that we can possible get to make a better application," Huer said. "But you always have to balance the fact that a few people might have something versus the fact that most people don't."
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