T-Mobile: Full-Speed iPhones in 2012, LTE-Advanced in 2013
The fourth-largest U.S. carrier says it'll have an AT&T-compatible HSPA+ network in much of the country this year.
NEW ORLEANS—T-Mobile said it would reorganize enough of its spectrum to allow unlocked iPhones to work at full 3G speeds "in a large number of markets" by the end of 2012, with "nationwide LTE" coming in 2013.
The spectrum shift, known as "refarming," lets T-Mobile use AT&T-compatible 3G and some 4G phones on its HSPA+ 42 network. That includes unlocked iPhones, which until now have been limited to 2G EDGE speeds on T-Mobile. All the same, more than a million iPhone owners have jumped over to T-Mobile already, according to 9to5Mac.com.
Up until now, T-Mobile's phone selection has been hampered by its use of the relatively unusual AWS frequency band for its high-speed network. Refarming to 1900Mhz, a widely accepted global standard, lets the company sell a broader range of 3G and HSPA+ phones.
The new network setup is also up to 33 percent faster than the current average HSPA+ 42 speeds of 8Mbps down, T-Mobile says, and it'll improve coverage inside buildings.
If T-Mobile really is getting 8Mbps down on average, its HSPA+ 42 performance is within striking distance of Verizon's LTE network, which got 9.46Mbps down on average in our Fastest Mobile Networks 2011 tests last year.
T-Mobile still won't be able to directly sell iPhones, at least for now, because the carrier hasn't reached an agreement with Apple to do so.
LTE Coming in 2013
The fourth-largest U.S. carrier will use the freed-up AWS spectrum, plus additional AWS airwaves after its failed merger with AT&T to launch LTE, it said. It will install "LTE-Advanced," Release 10 equipment at 37,000 cell sites to prepare for a 2013 launch in 18 or 19 of the top 25 U.S. markets, the company said.
LTE-Advanced is a notch newer than the LTE Verizon and AT&T currently have installed, but its speeds will be dependent on how T-Mobile builds the network and how much spectrum it has in each city.
Still, "need remains for additional spectrum for broader/deeper LTE deployment," the carrier noted in its press release.
Currently supporting 33.2 million customers, T-Mobile has been struggling since AT&T announced its intention to devour the smaller carrier last March. In the fourth quarter of 2011 it , which the carrier directly attributed to not being able to sell the iPhone.
"Contract business [was] negatively impacted in the fourth quarter of 2011 by iPhone 4S launches by three nationwide competitors," the carrier said in its fourth-quarter earnings press release.
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