American wireless company T-Mobile says it plans to roll out LTE in all major metro areas of the United States in the near future.
However, in announcing that the company wants to deploy spectrum for LTE service larger than 20x20 MHz, Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter did not deliver a timetable for when those upgrades are expected to be implemented. It comes as T-Mobile continues to push itself as the alternative to the top two carriers, Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
Carter, who also serves as executive vice president, did say the company plans to have "several" 20x20 MHz LTE deployments up and functioning by the end of the year. He was speaking at the Oppenheimer Technology, Internet & Communications Conference.
He stated the 20x20 MHz network expansion is not the end of T-Mobile's plans for upgrading its entire service, adding that the company plans to push its remote radio heads in the direction of supporting 30x30 MHz or 40x40 MHz deployments, but that will only follow the full implementation of the 20x20 network.
The overall goal, Carter says, is for T-Mobile to continue to offer its users the fastest and most reliable network coverage it can. Upgrading to the faster LTE network should help it make good on promises to customers.
"That speed translates into significant 4G data capacity that we can put over the network," he said. "The faster it's going through the pipe, the more we can carry over the pipe." The carrier's long-term goal is to have at least 20x20 MHz LTE configurations "in all of our major metropolitan areas," he said.
According to reports, T-Mobile presently has 15x15 MHz LTE deployments in 17 markets and hopes to expand to 26 by the end of the year. The carrier calls its 15x15 MHz LTE deployments "Wideband LTE."
This move follows AT&T's announcement that it was launching an ultra-fast Internet service in Austin and Miami called GigaPower that the wireless provider said would enhance speeds to up to 1 gigabit per second for users, Tech Times reports.
The move is good news for Americans who have become frustrated by the overall lack of Internet speed that is on par with other industrialized countries. Tech Times reported that Virginia has the fastest Internet speeds in the country, clocking in at around 13.7 Mbps, still only just over half of what South Korea enjoys.
For T-Mobile, it has been gaining steam in the wireless sector this year and hopes that its continued upgrading of its network will spur a boom in subscribers, especially as reports surface of a potential takeover by Dish Network.
