T-Mobile Won't Launch 4G For At Least 2 Years

said by jesseb_66:

They also are very aggressively deploying their 3G to cover their footprint.

said by openbox9:

Too bad T-Mobile's footprint isn't larger. That's really where it needs to invest resources.

said by Gbcue:

As it's been said many times, T-Mobile focuses on urban areas only. It might stretch out to partial rural areas, but that's not where its focus is.

said by tiger72:

And look at those pings. 50ms over wireless? Over 3g. You can play multiplayer FPS' at that latency.

said by Gbcue:

I just got 5/1mpbs at home on my T-Mobile phone.

Sounds faster than the rest.

said by FBGuy:

what phone do you have again?

said by xenophon:

Makes sense for HSPA carriers to stay on that path for a while, though they'll be deploying on legacy telcom infrastructure designed for voice. Do they have enough spectrum to deploy the higher speeds to same number of users sharing? Will ATT deploy HSPA+ on 700Mhz as well or just within existing spectrum? Is there a need to really deploy more than 10Mbps per user to mobile users?

My bets are on a Sprint/Tmob merger in 4-5 years when both are ready to go LTE in PCS spectrum. Clear will hopefully stick with WiMAX2 (100M-1G) and compete in landline space.

This infatuation with higher performance per user isn't realistic though given the spectrum limitations. It's more important (today) for wireless carriers to deploy 5-10Mbps to many mobile users at once from same site than 50Mbps to a few users who probably don't really need that.

said by tiger72:

I'm simplifying here, but right now they may be able to fit about 20 users on a tower at 1mbps each, with HSPA+ that increases up to about 160 users per tower at 1mbps each, and with LTE that goes up to about 200. The real gains are had by LTE-A which pretty much quadruples what standard LTE can do.

said by xenophon:

That's a good summary of my point. 4G can support more users at once at same level than HSPA+ can in same amount of spectrum. Next revision of 4G will support even more.

HSPA+ is obviously a better tactical move to make but they take the risk of potentially being behind in the 4G game each year they delay deploying it.

said by tiger72:

It can, but the increase from 56mbps HSPA+ to 70mbps LTE is pretty small and comes at a premium of about 2-3x the cost per user.

Using 700mhz, Verizon will certainly need that extra capacity headroom. The lower spectrum and larger cell comes at the cost of throughput. Verizon's LTE at 700mhz will be slower than LTE at 1700/1900/2500. So chances are that users on Verizon LTE won't see speeds any faster than T-Mobile HSPA+ at 1700.

said by tiger72:

Operators in Europe and Asia are also "nursing" HSPA+ until it's - you know - finally outperformed by LTE.

Something that broadband blogs seem to refuse to acknowledge is that Verizon and Sprint - both CDMA carriers pushing 4g - are *forced* into "4g" prematurely since their existing CDMA technology was effectively End-Of-Life.

Real world speeds of T-Mobile HSPA+ have already surpassed "4g" WiMax, and Canada's HSPA+ networks (Bell & Rogers) are even faster. And that's only the first revision. Pings are already below WiMax.

HSPA+ still has a 28mbps profile (which TMOUSA is skipping), a 42mbps profile, as well as a 56mbps profile that are already tested. 42mbps is already ready for market use.

T-Mobile USA (along with ATT) are using the correct path for GSM operators: Using HSPA+ until it's EOL. And EOL won't be for quite a few years. Because all evidence is pointing to LTE not providing GSM operators with ANY advantage over HSPA+.