By Monica Alleven Friday, September 18, 2009

CHICAGO—T-Mobile USA is fully embracing HSPA+, to the extent that it turned on about 20 cell sites in the Philadelphia market yesterday – a first for the U.S. market.

So far, the HSPA+ deployment shows a "very promising start," said Neville Ray, senior vice president of Engineering and Operations at T-Mobile USA, during a morning keynote at 4G World/Mobile Internet World.

T-Mobile USA's commitment to HSPA+ is a logical one for the GSM community, but fellow GSM-based operator AT&T surprised attendees earlier in the week when Kris Rinne, senior vice president of architecture and planning at AT&T, indicated the operator will make the jump to LTE without the HSPA+ interim step.

Ray candidly said he was surprised by AT&T's move, but "it's their business." Onlookers have suggested AT&T is going the LTE route faster because it has 700 MHz spectrum that needs to get used and is prime for it.




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