T-Mobile USA, the uncarrier, is the fastest growing American 4G LTE network. They’ve recently announced great results and now the business is talking about the scale of their network. Currently, 250 million Americans can experience T-Mobile’s LTE network. Better yet, T-Mobile’s LTE rollout is ahead of schedule; three words we don’t typically associate with LTE network rollouts at least in the UK. We’ve seen T-Mobile USA roll out their VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) technology very quickly too, just three months after launching it in Seattle. T-Mobile’s plans are to make their 4G LTE network available to over 280 million people by mid-2015 and 300 million by the end of next year using both their 700 MHz and 1,900 MHz spectrum. Another part of T-Mobile USA’s plans includes rolling out Wideband LTE into many areas, increasing the number to twenty six by the end of 2014.
T-Mobile are aiming at producing the best wireless experience possible for customers and their recent growth in both network coverage and customer numbers is positive. Depending on perspective, this is either the news from a business looking to be sold to another, or one that’s showing it has the mettle to go it alone. At this juncture, it’s impossible to tell what may happen. If somebody were thinking about making an offer for the carrier, they may be needing deeper pockets now. From T-Mobile’s perspective, if nothing happens, they appear to be doing just fine by themselves. For a carrier, this is a great place to be. And T-Mobile are not afraid of going for new handset deals, such as their tie in with Sony and of course the new Nexus 9, too.
The FCC’s recent announcement that they’re to postpone the low frequency auction is a mixed news for T-Mobile USA. On the one hand, their network plans appear to exclude the new low frequency spectrum and that’s a good thing. On the other, it would be great if T-Mobile USA could surprise us again. This may be a little bit less likely, but the last thing T-Mobile USA’s blog reported is that they expect to be bringing another announcement to us soon.