News: T-Mobile Unveils LTE Plans

T-Mobile announced its earning report early this morning. This report comes as the first since the failed merger between itself and AT&T. The report isn’t all fun and games, as the title may suggest. T-Mobile is reporting a net loss of over 800,000 subscribers in Q4 2011. The churn stops there, at least, in that its prepaid customer base increased by 276,000 subscribers in the same time period. The big news in the report is of T-Mobile’s plan to (finally) roll out an LTE network with its increased holdings gained from the AT&T deal.

T-Mobile projected that it will begin transferring its HSPA+ network to its 1900MHz PCS holdings this year, while clearing the 1700MHz AWS bands for use by its LTE network rollout. The move is significant for several reasons. Most notably due to the increased number of devices this allows into T-Mobile’s network. iPhone users should rejoice at the news of being able to take your device to a less crowded network and friendlier staff while also getting 3G coverage, since the lack of an iPhone was a reason quoted as being one of the major setbacks last quarter yet again.

T-Mobile is set to fit 37,000 of its cell sites with new hardware to allow for easy transitioning in the near future. This brings about yet another bit of good news for T-Mobile. By shifting to another band to offer HSPA+, it increases its ability to offer the newest dual-band DC-HSPA+. DC-HSPA+ is a technology that allows a device to connect to two towers simultaneously. This increases the efficiency of the device as well as providing possible faster data speeds to the end user. Considering T-Mobile’s aggressive support for HSPA+ technology, this addition would be a simple implementation, and a beneficial one for consumers.

The last bit of good news in this projection is that T-Mobile customers may enjoy finally being able to do something about not having the best gadgets due to the AWS radio not being fitted inside several of today’s headsets. The plan for AT&T covers moving its LTE network on 1700MHz AWS spectrum, with its 3G network being moved between 850MHz and 1900Mhz. This would give T-Mobile users access to any device on AT&T for use on Magenta. This sounds like an incredible plan for someone like myself, who loves AT&T’s device lineup, but hates their customer service and awful network reliability.

Lastly, the quote below is the interesting bit from the earnings report covering the LTE bits. Hit the source link for the entire earnings report.

T-Mobile USA announced it will invest $4 billion in total to strengthen its 4G network by installing new equipment at 37,000 cell sites and deploying HSPA+ in its PCS (1900) spectrum band. This spectrum re-farming effort, combined with the AWS spectrum T-Mobile USA will receive due to the termination of the AT&T transaction (subject to FCC approval), will allow the deployment of long-term evolution (LTE) service on AWS spectrum in 2013. This anticipated network transformation will significantly enhance coverage and performance for customers.