Cisco's new CRS-3 Router will help AT&T deal with its wireless traffic?

The WSJ today reports that the big announcement that Cisco’s been hyping all week is actually a faster router.  While that may not be as exciting a s a new tablet device (or it may be depending on your tastes), it will hopefully have some effect on Apple customers.  The WSJ profiled AT&T and specifically their wireless (read:iPhone) customers who are the major catalyst for new broadband:

AT&T, meanwhile, said the 100-gigabit backbone Internet network would support growing wireless and wired data and traffic “for years to come.” In particular, AT&T has dealt with the explosive growth in wireless data, primarily driven by the Apple Inc. iPhone, among other smart phones.  The router “allows us to serve volumes of traffic that we need to serve,” said Keith Cambron, CEO of AT&T Labs.

AT&T has stated that they are working hard on bringing up their wireless speeds but first must upgrade their backhaul.  That’s where the Cisco CSR-3 would come in handy, delivering much more data over the same lines.AT&T have also stated that they don’t anticipate much additional traffic from Apple’s iPad – something we’ll start to understand at the end of April.