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T-Mobile has announced the expansion of their HSPA+ network into several new regions today. Abilene, Amarillo, Odessa, and Victoria, Texas; Bakersfield, California; Eau Claire, Wisconsin; and Joplin and St. Joseph, Missouri are all now blanketed in TMo’s 4G speeds. Abilene, Amarillo, Odessa, and Victoria are all covered under the carrier’s 42Mbps infrastructure.
Though it’s fast, T-Mobile’s network isn’t true 4G. Moving ahead CTO Neville Ray says the carrier is considering a couple of options for increasing data speeds. A 4G LTE rollout is planned for 2013, but there is still potential for 84Mbps HSPA+ coverage to bridge the gap. Ray provides a few more details, including an explanation of how the failure of the proposed AT&T merger resulted in a renewed commitment to rolling out a true next-gen network. Check out the interview at the T-Mobile blog post sourced below.
[via T-Mobile]
I like how bloggers seem to think that they themselves decide what the standards for 4G are.
The ITU has agreed HSPA+ is 4G, the speeds are there on par with LTE, the coverage is better, it’s a whole lot cheaper, it’s backwards compatible with 3G devices giving them a speed bump. Just deal with it already, it’s 4G.
You must also be a TMobile fan.. I have a co worker with a my touch 4g slide and my old droid x smokes it in benchmark test and simple real world web browsing and its NOT 4G nor is Tmobiles HSPA+. If it was why would they be rolling out a 4G LTE for 2013?
And your droid X which never will see anything higher than 3-4 mbps is faster than potentially 42 mbps phone? You sir ride your phone too hard. Right now I have the Mytouch 4g slide and it get about 7-14 mbps with 3 out of 4 bars. My G2 also get on avg of 7-10 mbps. So Thank you very much. But we don’t need you trying to act like you know what you are talking about.
P.S. No I not just on T-mo, I also have Verizon and AT&T and yes I can make these real life comparisons.
Another TMobile apologist..ha ha What good is the “potential” of a phone achieving 42 mbps if the crapy network that it is on means that you will never see that in reality or anything even close to it? Again if even Tmobile believed in this crappy HSPA+ why are they rolling out a 4G LTE network for 2013? If you can’t answer that STFU.
You think everyone with an LTE phone gets the same amazing speeds? Stop hating and face the fact that HSPA+ is great technology. LTE just has all the hype. Just like when uninformed people talk about iPhones vs. Android. “If androids are so much better how come every carrier wants the iPhone?” MONEY
What are you even talking about? NO not everyone with an LTE phone gets the same amazing speeds there are many factors that determine your actual speeds in the end. But I will say that the slowest speeds that I get with my RMaxx is better than the fastest speeds of HSPA+ where I live.. and if LTE is “hype” I’ll ask you the same question. Why is Tmobile rolling out a 4G LTE network for 2013? So they can join the “hype” ha ha.. If you don’t have an answer STFU.
You just ignored everything I said, but okay. just because it’s hype doesn’t mean it won’t get them business. And you obviously have zero real world evidence to back up these claims so I’m going to ignore them.
They are deploying LTE to be appealing to potential investors. The performance benefits is kind of secondary.
Remember the majority of the world is still on HSPA+ so when phone manufacturers make devices the chipsets for the most part will favor HSPA+ over LTE.
The HTC One X is a prime example. The phone envisioned as quad core, supports HSPA+ for the majority of the world but had to be stripped of that processor to support at&t LTE.
As an investor I would never look at “performance benefits” in mobile technology as secondary..
Oh sir I can answer you.
First HSPA+ was the cheaper and fastest way for them to upgrade to a faster and more reliable network and at the same time they finally went and presented 3g and 4G to parts that did not even have any 3G signal. Just like LTE and any other wireless signal companies throw out Theoretical Speeds that their phone can Support. I am not saying it will reach it but it can. And in my example i told you i easily reach 10mbps with about 75% signal, (just the last time i actually did a speed test havent tried with full signal).
Why Tmo is rolling out LTE is for two reasons People want LTE because it is advertised to be the best but no one understands what LTE really is and the people just want to get the latest and the greatest . just like most not all iPhone Users they dont know the specs of the device nor do they care, they know it is the newest version of the iPhone so they will argue it is the best phone out there. without backing their claims. people are now doing that with LTE.
Second Tmo wants to bring in the big guns and a better wireless solution overall.
Imagine me and you had our (future) LTE phones, you with verizon and me with Tmobile.
and lets say we both get 20-30 mbps down on our phones with perfect signal, we are all and happy, The minute you and I both run into an area where their is no LTE you go back to 3G of1-2.5 mbps and i will go back to HSPA+42 10mbps. I will still be faster and flying through the internet while you have to wait a lil bit more. Then when i ran out of HSPA+42 i go back to HSPA and then run with 2-4 mbps. It takes me one extra step to get close to your speeds and I get to enjoy faster internet without LTE.
THATS WHY!
Try using T Mo before trying to be an expert on them. Not only is their data considerably faster than the garbage evdo you get on the X… the voice quality on phone calls is second to none. Landline quality… as opposed to Verizon’s tin-can-on-a-string quality.
Sent from my Verizon 4G Galaxy Nexus.
Never claimed to be an expert on Tmobile try again.. And that “tin-can-on-a-string quality” is due to the Galaxy Nexus you have pressed against your head.. Ha Ha you set yourself up for that..get a real phone..
It’s every Verizon phone. Rezound. Razr. Thunderbolt. Droid X. Droid. Iphone. Blackberry Curve. Verizon has the worst call quality in the US of A. Ha ha, you set yourself up for that one… get your ears checked.
I have or have had 4 of the phones on your list, (Razr, Thunderbolt, DroidX, Droid) and never ever has the call quality come into question on those phones.. You must have a GNex.
As have I Moto…. and the Nexus is actually the best of the bunch. The problem isn’t the phones. It’s the network. EVRC is a terrible voice codec. And to compound matters, Qualcomm never did quality testing with women or children so they sound worse. To further add to it, Verizon is oversold in nearly every market nationwide… which is why they’re rushing LTE out. The fact remains though, that any phone on Verizon sounds worse than the same phone – or any like phone – on any other network in America… T-Mo, AT&T and Sprint all sound exponentially better than Verizon. That’s a fact. And TMo stands at the top of the heap using full rate speech.
They are most likely moving to LTE (primarily) because it makes them look good from an investor perspective. Rumors have floated around the press that Deutche Telekom would take T-Mobile USA public and be the majority shareholder. There are plenty of players who would probably invest in T-Mobile and LTE would help that cause. This is a business after all.
What 4G whiners on blogs fail to comprehend is that HSPA+ 42 is drastically different than other releases of HSPA+ including 14.Besides, it’s LTE release 10 or LTE advanced that T-Mobile is going to roll out which is a generational leap in performance from the Verizon deployment of LTE.
If HSPA+ 42 is “drastically different” than other releases of HSPA+. If the “majority of the world is still on HSPA+”. and “when phone manufactures make devices the chipsets for the most part will favor HSPA+ over LTE”. Why would any investor want them to change to LTE technology. That just doesn’t make any sense at all.. And those are all your quotes by the way.. They are most likely moving to LTE (primarily) because it is a more advanced, faster 4G technology..
LTE is not always faster. Have you used MetroPCS LTE? HSPA+ smokes that any day of the week.
HSPA+ 42 with a full 42 capable device and Verizon LTE is pretty much a wash. Remember, only 5% of Verizon customers are on LTE while 40% of T-Mobile’s customer base are hogging HSPA+ bandwidth and it’s STILL comparable with LTE.
You also keep forgetting it’s LTE Advanced they are moving too which is a drastic speed bump. It’s pretty much something else entirely that the tech Verizon has deployed for LTE now. T-Mobile is NOT just deploying the LTE tech verizon and at&t are already using but a more advanced version of that.
You’re my hero.
Lol, thats just kevin being a prick. He’s been a tmobile hater for years now
This guy must be running a shitty rom (hmmm, maybe espresso) and have a shitty connection because my older G2 smokes in benchmarks and gets 14 Mbps average even in the small town I live in.
In reply to jldleo
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Does this mean that T-Mo has actually expanded their coverage footprint, or just added hspa to these select locations? I’d love to jump on the T-Mo bandwagon, but that coverage… They really need a better overall network footprint/coverage.
Their coverage should be better soon. They got a sweetheart roaming deal with AT&T after the merger failed. Once that kicks in, they’ll have their current footprint plus, at minimum, AT&T’s 2G footprint. I’m not sure if the roaming deal included 3G/HSPA for phones that can handle the frequency differences or not.
Nice! (if it does include at least 3G, anyway)
What everyone forgets about hspa+ is it is already congested with users all of tmo is on at least 3g in most areas once lte gets congested it will slow not as much bit I’m getting 16 down now with galaxy s 2
I’m getting 4.5M down and 1.5M up in Minneapolis, which is about the same as I get in Akron. That’s faster than DSL, in my pocket and portable. If that’s congested, I’m fine with that.
(HTC Sensation 4G, Stock ROM, Detroit SpeedTest.net server)
its not true 4g? any idiot can be a writer huh
All I’m going to say is from what I’ve observed performance wise
HSPA+14 = HSPA 7.2
HSPA+ 21 = 2x HSPA 7.2
HSPA+42 = LTE = Legitimately 20mbps+ all the time
I do get around 20Mb/s down on my amaze, just about all the time.
Im glad tmobile is here to stay i rather 82mbits hspa+ vs. lte though
The reason why tmobile is rolling out LTE is to be compatible to iphone5’s lte antena just in case.
Fyi next gen hspa+ antenas will be even more faster capable of connecting to 2 antenas at the same time! Better for traffic.
HSPA+ also doesn’t kill the battery as fast as LTE.
While the majority of their network (not people here, actual land) remains on GPRS and EDGE, major BOO T-Mobile.