T-Mobile brings 'Wideband' 15x15 MHz LTE service to Las Vegas

T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) said it launched LTE service in Las Vegas on "Wideband" 15x15 MHz channels, making it one of 17 markets where T-Mobile is touting more capacity and faster speeds.

The carrier has been combining its own AWS spectrum with similar spectrum it acquired from merging with MetroPCS to create wider LTE channels. T-Mobile says that in markets where it has 15x15 MHz deployments customers can get theoretical peak download speeds up to 110 Mbps and theoretical peak upload speeds of 38 Mbps.

The "Wideband LTE" moniker is the operator's marketing term for spectrum deployments of at least 15x15 MHz. The service now covers Atlanta, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; Columbus, Ohio;     Dallas; Detroit; Honolulu; Houston;  Jacksonville, Fla.; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Mobile, Ala.;  Orlando, Fla.; Portland, Ore.; Seattle;  Tampa, Fla.; and parts of upstate New York.

At the time of its first-quarter 2014 earnings announcement, T-Mobile said it had deployed 15x15 MHz LTE in nine metro areas and would have 19 covered by year-end. It had also deployed 20x20 MHz LTE in North Dallas and Detroit and pledged to have seven such deployments by the end of 2014.

T-Mobile also reiterated that its Voice over LTE service now covers more than 107 million POPs in 15 markets, with nationwide VoLTE expected by year-end. Overall, T-Mobile now covers 230 million POPs with its LTE network and the carrier plans to cover 250 million POPs with LTE by the end of 2014.

However T-Mobile is not the only carrier deploying wider channels for LTE. Verizon Wireless' (NYSE: VZ) 700 MHz LTE network covers around 306 million POPs. The carrier has also been busy deploying its LTE service on its AWS spectrum to bolster its network capacity, in some markets with an additional 20 MHz of spectrum. The carrier has dubbed the combination of LTE on 700 MHz and AWS spectrum as "XLTE."

Verizon recently announced that more than 300 markets now have XLTE service (up from around 250 in mid-May). Verizon's 700 MHz LTE network is available in more than 500 markets in the U.S.

Sprint (NYSE: S), which said it would cover 250 million POPs by the middle of the 2014, plans to use carrier aggregation technology to deploy 20x20 MHz LTE service on its 2.5 GHz spectrum by the end of the year as part of its tri-band Sprint Spark service. Jon Saw, Sprint's chief network officer, has said 40 MHz carrier aggregation will enable peak downlink speeds of 120 Mbps, but that Spark users may need to purchase new devices to be able to access those faster speeds.

AT&T Mobility (NYSE: T) says its LTE network now covers nearly 290 million POPs in more than 500 markets across the country. The company plans to deploy LTE on its AWS spectrum in the future on top of its 700 MHz deployment.

AT&T has also started to refarm its 1900 MHz PCS spectrum for LTE in multiple markets, including, Baltimore, Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Further, AT&T also has plans to begin deploying LTE on its 2.3 GHZ WCS spectrum sometime in 2015.

For more:
- see this T-Mobile release

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