T-Mobile made a move on the 4G market today announcing it had America's largest 4G network
T-Mobile announced today that they have the largest 4G data network in the United States. They have 75 metropolitan markets fired up with their HSPA+ service with another 25 planned to come online before the end of 2010. This translates into service for about 200 million Americans by the time the 100+ markets are on board.
T-Mobile, largely a lower cost carrier with coverage that is second to big providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless in many markets, is trying to take a bite out the data pie. The new ad campaign touts that they have the largest 4G service footprint offering speeds that exceed the other carriers’ offerings.
The company claims it’s current max download speeds are on the order of 21Mbps. T-Mobile has plans to expand that to 42Mbps in 2011. Technical experts in the company believe the capacity exists to expand that further to 84Mbps and 168Mbps down the road. This all within the parameters of LTE or Long Term Evolution of the 3GPP standard.
A number of devices are launching with the upgraded service including the T-Mobile myTouch 4G smartphone, G2 smartphone and Rocket 2.0 4G Laptop Stick. A Dell Mini laptop is also available with build in 4G capabilities.
Although T-Mobile’s HSPA+ service is technically 3G service, not 4G as the company is claiming, they have decided to run with the 4G tag on their offering. T-Mobile’s service is still more than twice as fast as competing carrier Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network offering. The technical misrepresentation will likely be called out by other carriers.
