I find it interesting they have added the 850 band to the towers in NYC. They *MUST* be desperate. However from a functional standpoint, it would seem to be the best step. I anticipate that there must be about 50% improvement in capacity and general availability, and very likely an increase in over all "signal strength" with the addition of the better penetrating 850 band. This allows each site to have an additional sector that overlaps with each current 1800 one, covering the same area. What this should have done is allow AT&T to add an entire new cabinet set to each site, with ability for adding more data / voice capacity for the land connection, and obviously adding the wireless capacity. Now the real interesting item will be seeing how AT&T deals with the variety of phones that "prefer" one or the other. The all mighty iPhone will use an 850 before it uses the 1800 band. While the Blackberry bold will hold on to the 1800 as long as it can, using 850 last. THey can limit max wireless connections to each sector, but some phones will have a slight delay before giving up on their preferred band. So overall I'd say there MUST be a "noticeable" improvement in NYC. Now if they'd just do this in San Francisco.