Following the roll out of three more 1900 MHz HSPA+ compatible markets earlier this month, T-Mobile has rolled out more markets in order to keep inline with previous projections of covering 100 million people on 1900MHz HSPA+ access with the following markets being launched as of today:
New York City; Newark, N.J.; Boston, Cambridge and Springfield, Mass.; Providence, R.I.; Philadelphia; Detroit and Warren, Mich.; Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and San Antonio, Texas; and Tampa, Fla.
The new markets reflect T-Mobile’s accelerated timetable for transitioning from 1700/2100 AWS to 1900MHz for rolling out its long expected LTE network beginning next year on T-Mobile’s AWS spectrum, with the 1900MHz band support also serving a dual purpose in attracting iPhone owners who are either looking to move away from AT&T or bringing unlocked iPhones to the carrier in order to take advantage of the recently relaunched unlimited data offering in order to stay competitive.
With the increasing roll out of 1900 MHz HSPA service, the rollout will make things easier for T-Mobile to roll out LTE as the AWS spectrum can be completely dedicated to LTE, rather than splitting the spectrum between both standards, as is being done by MetroPCS with its combination CDMA/LTE network with mixed real-world results and is having to roll out VoLTE in order to speed up its own transition to an LTE only network, before it agreed to the reverse merger to T-Mobile earlier this year, which puts its VoLTE transition into doubt now that the network will be merged with T-Mobile’s existing assets by 2015.
Additionally, with T-Mobile going Value Plan-only with no subsidies next year as a result of being able to officially sell Apple’s mobile product line up starting next year, those with unlocked phones and AT&T compatible phones have more of an incentive to join T-Mobile next year as the network will be compatible with the vast majority of HSPA-capable phones.
