AT&T Wireless made a big deal yesterday out of plans to upgrade six U.S. cities to its High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 technology, which sounds impressive until you look at the provider's coverage map.

There are still broad areas of the U.S. in the West that are without AT&T coverage, and the map fails to mention that large areas that do have coverage aren't yet 3G-enabled. This is a company that has monopoly service rights to the fastest-selling smart phone in the U.S., the iPhone, and one of the tightest strangleholds on the wireless Internet access market.

Upgrading cities is fine. But bringing coverage to the West, 3G coverage to rural areas and better service to everybody should be part of the deal.   In its announcement, AT&T brags:

"The upgrades are part of AT&T’s ongoing efforts to drive innovation and investment to lead the industry in delivering the benefits of smartphones and mobile broadband for customers. More smartphone customers have chosen AT&T over any U.S. competitor, resulting in wireless traffic on the AT&T network that has quadrupled over the past year. This growth includes a volume of smartphone data traffic over the AT&T network that is unmatched in the wireless industry."

And without a monopoly on iPhone service, how would all that have gone down?

Yesterday's announcement is nice for the folks who can get the benefits. But because of everybody who is still left out while AT&T counts its iPhone-related service revenue, it's nothing to brag about.