T-Mobile US Not Even Thinking About LTE
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Just like a few years ago with 3G, all of the US mobile carriers are talking about and rolling out their 4G networks. Well, except for T-Mobile US. The German-owned carrier admitted a few weeks ago that they aren’t looking at rolling out a 4G network for at least two years. And in that time – they’ll be betting the farm on their 3.5G HSPA+ network.
Rene Obermann, CEO of T-Mobile’s German mothership, Deutsche Telekom, admitted that they are a far way off from 4G. Instead, they’re going to be continuing to roll out their super-fast HSPA+ network. One benefit for T-Mobile is that because they were the last to build their 3G network (by buying auctioned-off spectrum), their infrastructure equipment only requires a firmware update to rollout HSPA+.
For T-Mobile, the 4G issue is a contentious one. German investors believe that building a 4G network for T-Mobile US will be too costly for Deutsche Telekom, and they’re pressured Obermann to sell T-Mobile US. The solution for T-Mobile has been HSPA+.
One advantage HSPA+ has over the WiMAX 4G network from Sprint and the upcoming LTE 4G networks from Verizon and AT&T is that, it’s already rolled out in a lot of cities. Most major American cities already have HSPA+ coverage, compared to Sprint’s 4G where quite a few cities are lacking coverage. Verizon’s 4G network isn’t launching until October (according to rumors). AT&T won’t start building their 4G network until next year.
While WiMAX and LTE do offer better theoretical maximum speeds, HSPA+ is nothing to laugh at. It offers 21Mb/s theoretically with T-Mobile saying another firmware update on their network can bring that to 40Mb/s.
Another advantage T-Mobile may have? Of the four major US carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile), Tmo is probably the cheapest of the lot. Building wireless networks is expensive, and don’t think that won’t trickle down to the customer.
What do you think about T-Mobile’s decision to stick with 3.5G instead of 4G? Sound off the comments.
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I think sticking with HSPA+ is a great idea. Most of Europe is sticking with HSPA+ for the foreseeable future also. Why switch prematurely to LTE when HSPA+ has a long, long road ahead of it? 21mbps. 42mbps. 56mbps.
And T-Mobile’s theoretically slower network is already beating Sprint’s “4g” WiMax in speed tests.
So who cares about 3g, 3.5g, or 4g? What matters are what performance the end user gets.
Going to 4G LTE now is premature. The investment will be heavy and in one way or another, all the cost of passed to the consumer.
T-Mobile USA is making the intelligent choice of staying with a technology (HSPA+) that is more than capable of supporting current consumer demands when it comes to data speeds. They are also aggressively building more sites to address the coverage issues that they have. With a very attactive consumer plans and the fastest data network to date, It is obvious that T-Mobile USA is the best choice for wireless consumers.