Quickly following the announcement that it is planning to invest over $4 billion in network improvements throughout 2013, T-Mobile has been enhancing its coverage in dozens of new markets in the last month. Last week the carrier added 5 new markets, bringing the total to 23, and today it is rolling out enhanced 1900MHz HSPA+ coverage to another 14 markets. Users in the following areas should see improved speeds and building penetration, as well as HSPA+ speeds on unlocked AT&T handsets:
- New York, including The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island
- Newark, N.J., including the surrounding cities of East Orange, Elizabeth, Jersey City, North Bergen, Paterson and Union City
- Boston and Cambridge, Mass., including the surrounding cities of Amherst, Andover, Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Billerica, Braintree, Brockton, Brookline, Burlington, Canton, Chelmsford, Chelsea, Chicopee, Dedham, Everett, Framingham, Hadley, Holbrook, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lexington, Lowell, Ludlow, Lynn, Malden, Marblehead, Medford, Melrose, Metheun, Milton, Nahant, Natick, Needham, Newton, Quincy, Reading, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Sommerville, Stoneham, Swampscott, Tewksbury, Wakefield, Walpole, Waltham, Watertown, Weston, Westwood, Weymouth, Wilmington, Winchester, Winthrop and Woburn
- Springfield, Mass.
- Providence, R.I., including the surrounding cities of Cranston, North Providence, Pawtucket and Warren
- Philadelphia
- Detroit and Warren, Mich., including the surrounding cities of Dearborn, Romulus, Royal Oak, Sterling Heights and Troy
- Dallas, including the surrounding cities of Arlington, Carrolton, The Colony, Denton, Farmers Branch, Flower Mound, Frisco, Garland, Grand Prairie, Irving, Lancaster, Lewisville, McKinney, Mesquite, Plano, Richardson, Rowlett and Southlake
- Fort Worth, Texas, including the surrounding cities of Keller and Mansfield
- Austin, Texas, including the surrounding city of Round Rock
- San Antonio
- Tampa, Fla., including the surrounding cities of Clearwater, Largo, Safety Harbor, St. Petersburg and Vinoy Park
By our count that puts T-Mobile at 37 total markets with enhanced coverage and 1900MHz HSPA+ deployment, which is a good start. We'll see how the carrier continues its rollout through 2013 while it manages an LTE network deployment as well.
Source: T-Mobile
Reader comments
T-Mobile ends 2012 by launching 14 more 1900MHz HSPA+ markets
You missed this part of the announcement:
T-Mobile will continue to expand the network advancements in these metro areas and has begun coverage enhancements in additional areas, including parts of Los Angeles and San Diego, where customers are already experiencing improved coverage and unlocked iPhone “speed sightings” on T-Mobile’s 4G network.
They went HARD in Boston. All the areas that I go to are covered.
Hopefully they get NH too soon because i go there sometimes.
Maybe it's time to get a unlocked DNA or X+
Last minute hotel app. Get it on google play.
http://biodabulsam.com/
1900Mhz is also where Sprint plays as well as Verizon. Just different blocks of said spectrum. (1900 PCS Band).
Also, T-Mobiles re-farm is HSPA+ 21 NOT HSDPA 42+ DC for right now. After the Metro PCS merger all this will & may change as they absorb their spectrum & turn off CDMA.
I'm just waiting for them to improve their service in the Mobile Metropolitan Area. That would make me very happy.
T-Mo started over a year later and they're already passing Sprint.
T-Mo actually hasn't started LTE....
So How they passing sprint?
It says Dallas and Fort Worth, and many of the surrounding cities. What I want to know is how much of Fort Worth. I technically live in Fort Worth, but Saginaw is actually closer to me than down town fort worth.
Curious minds want to know.
It says "including the surrounding cities of Keller and Mansfield". Since Saginaw is kind of in between Fort Worth and Keller, I think you'd be covered. But I'm not entirely sure.
That's kind of what I'm hoping.
Anybody with T-Mobile in Connecticut?
Hartford area, I live in New Britain, how is the service?
I use Google Navigation a lot, so signal & GPS is very important!
Bah, how 'bout Long Island?
Is this HSPA 42?
I'm pretty sure it is: that is primarily what T-Mobile uses as its "4G."
Yes. All refarmed 1900Mhz is 42Mbps.
This is actually incorrect. Currently all refarmed 1900Mhz markets are HSPA+21. In many markets T-Mobile simply doesn't have enough spectrum to deploy DC-HSPA+ on 1900Mhz, and at the same time keep the needed legacy GSM support.
Wow, wonderful news if you are the owner of an old iPhone and live in a mega market. For the rest of us, who were lied to about the extent of T-Mobile's 4G footprint we're stuck with Edge.
I travel in large, medium and small markets and T-Mobile hands down has the worst coverage. AT&T has all the small markets covered in HSPA+. I occasionally find their 3G, but never 2G. In larger areas I see their HSPA+ and LTE. Same with Verizon. With T-Mobile I find very small 4G footprints in major cities and then Edge everywhere else.
What T-Mobile should be spending their time and money on is building out the rest of their 4G network and getting rid of Edge instead of trying to appease the iPhone crowd.
you're such a Liar. wow
Seriously? How is he a liar? I've tried out Tmobile here, and the signal drastically changes every 100 ft.
I just recently switched from Sprint to Tmobile and I have to agree with Androidopensourceproject. Tmobile has some quirky issues with reception but it's still 100% better than Sprint because even when I can't find reception on my S3 on Tmobile I was still able to get about a day and a half of battery life compared to my S3 on Sprint which couldn't even go a day. Luckily for me every place I normally visit has wifi so not complaining much.
You do realize that T-Mobile is "building out the rest of their 4G network" and is "getting rid of Edge" starting next year to make way for LTE. As for "trying to appease the iPhone crowd," T-Mobile is a business: they are not Android fanboys. Getting the iPhone next year will be good for T-Mobile: many iOS users that can use their phones with T-Mobile don't because all they get are Edge speeds right now. T-Mobile expanding their network is a move that will benefit iOS and Android users alike. And because of the nature of the LTE networks that T-Mobile will be deploying, they will be more than able to handle the influx of additional users (primarily from prepaid plans).
It all depends where you live, their are many areas where T-mobile's coverage is indeed very sparse and they have lots of edge coverage.
Over here in NJ I have HSPA+ coverage everywhere from DC to Philly and up past NYC, but truthfully this kind of coverage by t-mobile is the exception, not the rule.
This area is honestly 99% of my time, so it's no big deal for me and many in this area.
But T-mobile doesn't cover all areas equally, I think with their network upgrade plans a lot of edge areas should be upgraded we'll see what happens.
What a carrier promises and what's delivered usually don't match.
Nobody knows for sure. T-Mobile needs to come out and make it clear that they are going to upgrade the remaining 2G/EDGE towers after the HSPA+ areas have been modernized.
Live in Waltham, Just unlocked my SGS2 from AT&T, popped in my T-Mobile sim card and bang, I'm getting HSPA+ speeds. My signal is 87dbm and getting 8MB down and 3MB up on 1900mHz. I get unbelievable T-Mobile speeds anyways but now with the new roll out I can use just about anything on T-Mobile. This is great stuff from T-Mobile.
Well, they are getting closer, I'm looking forward to them rolling out 1900Mhz in Red Bank, NJ
My phone gets gets a very low signal in my apartment, it's completely usable no voice drops out or anything, but it kills my phones battery straining to hold onto the signal.
If I switch to 2G Edge on 1900Mhz I get 4 bars, so it should help my battery life, as well as reception indoors in general.
I noticed that when I switch to 2G Edge on my Galaxy Nexus, I get 5 bars and it's actually decent for web browsing and Google Music.
OK, dumb question. If they moving to 1900MHz, what were they on before?
AWS 1700/2100
1900 Mhz is used for iPhone compatibility and broader phone support.
correct me if I'm wrong but I always thought it was dependent on frequency that would determine how well it would penetrate objects.
are they serious? launching in NYC? just now?....
btw i love how he said building penetration lol
I always thought GSM had better building penetration than CDMA. I could never get a straight answer on that: some articles say CDMA, some say GSM...
It doesn't matter per say, what matters is the frequency being used.
+9000 thanks
It's not the technology that allows for better building penetration, it's the frequency used.
T-mobile uses higher frequencies than Verizon for example, which is why Verizon in building penetration is generally better.
AT&T uses a combination of high and low spectrum frequencies depending on the market.
For example AT&T and Verizon both have 850Mhz 3G service, if they were on the same tower and outputting the same amount of power, building penetration in a neighboring building should be roughly the same in that the db rating of the signal should be roughly the same.
+9000 Thanks, that makes sense. I must have been reading some pretty crappy editorials on the subject, because I don't remember any of them mentioning frequency as the cause of building penetration: the articles basically said that one does it and one doesn't.
Actually, in T-Mobile's case it's not only the frequency that improves in building propagation. It's also the new Release 10 compatible infrastructure, and radio top electronics that decreases signal loss and increases the signal propagation.
T-Mobile is doing everything right at this point.
I'm glad I went Prepaid with T-Mobile. With the current rollout of HSPA+ and the future rollout of LTE, T-Mobile will be an even more formidable player in 2013.
Apparently it launched here in Seattle not too long ago but I have yet to see it :)
Depending on the capabilities of your phone, you may not see it till you upgrade.
Finally New York love:)
Happy that they've made that much progress in Detroit, as my wife has an unlocked iPhone 4s. Would like expanded coverage in Bloomfield/Birmingham/Southfield though.
Notice how these are freaking HUGE market areas, while at the same time AT&T and Verizon are announcing tiny little places like Pasco Washington?
Gotta start somewhere. When AT&T began their LTE rollout they started in the big metro areas and moved outward. Sprint's starting with smaller areas first so they can just increase the number of "markets" they're in so they can spin it that way. I think more customers would rather have the AT&T rollout than the Sprint, as the bigger markets hit a greater population more quickly.
Well T-Mo is only doing 3G to HSPA+, which, worst case, is a transmitter swap out and improved back-haul, no up-tower work required at all.
Its a far cry from LTE, but with their smaller customer base, it probably yields almost the same speed improvement as LTE.
Sprint/Verizon have a much steeper hill to climb, as they have to add GSM/LTE to their existing decrepit CDMA gear. Twice the equipment in the same tower shacks all of it custom built because CDMA+LTE isn't used anywhere else in the world.
They aren't even upgrading to HSPA+. They're only adding new frequencies for more phones to use their already existing HSPA+ network.
Decrepit CDMA gear? WTF are you talking about? Sprint actually is implementing NEW CDMA protocols and equipment. Also, LTE is NOT GSM at all, its based on CDMA & Qualcomm technologies. Just how UMTS is actually CDMA.
I really wish people would research. If you doubt me at all, just call Qualcomm or go on their website.
DISCLAIMER: I have friends who work for Sprint, I have T-Mobile.
UMTS is not CDMA. Its WCDMA, and radically different.
Here go read: http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-cdma-and-...
Here in New York City Tmobile is and has been very alive and well with an excellent network. I get 85dBm and 5asu very consistent since leaving Verizon in June 2012. Bottom line here Tmobile and it's GSM network provides much better signal and extremely better inside building signal than Verizon and it's CDMA lte network. While on Verizon my dBm was always around 118 to 125 dBm and 15asu which meant my device couldn't hold a signal and that was outside in Manhattan. My Verizon Galaxy Nexus was useless always switching from Lte to 3g to1x and kiled my battery life daily. My Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note on tmobile work in a way my Galaxy Nexus never did. Tmobile has been doing BIG THINGS in 2012 and 2013 will real big for tmobile. It's great to enjoy unlimited data on great devices on a network that just works on a daily basis. Glad to be able to enjoy that with no excuses and heavy battery drain like Verizon.
Lol...
You've got a point with AT&T, Verizon not so much
Verizon's deployments aren't as big of news simply because they have almost all of the big markets already covered :)
Duh, it makes PERFECT sense to roll out these upgrades to HUGE markets first, where the majority of your customer base is going to see/use it.
Why roll out your new technology to BF Kansas when you probably have 10 customers vs. 100,000+ in a NY area.
LOL, c'mon man, think!?!?!?
Maybe Sprint should listen to your advice because they sure as hell aren't introducing their roll out to Huge Markets.