T-Mobile USA expanded its HSPA+ network to eight new markets as it continues its push toward covering 100 markets and 200 million POPs by the end of the year.
The nation's No. 4 carrier, which has been marketing the service as "4G" (to the consternation of rival carriers), added HSPA+ in Detroit; Grand Junction, Colo.; Harlingen, Texas; Lafayette and South Bend, Ind.; Montgomery, Ala.; Roanoke-Lynchburg, Va. and Youngstown, Ohio. The carrier now offers HSPA+ in more than 80 metropolitan areas.
T-Mobile said the network offers theoretical peak downlink speeds of 21 Mbps, although T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray said earlier this month that the carrier's myTouch 4G smartphone was getting average downlink speeds of around 5 Mbps. The company has upgraded its backhaul in HSPA+ markets using a combination of copper, fiber and some microwave backhaul. The carrier plans to upgrade to network technology next year that would support theoretical peak downlink rates of 42 Mbps via dual carrier technology that uses advanced multiplexing techniques to combine two wireless data carriers into a single carrier.
Meantime, AT&T (NYSE:T) has said that 80 percent of its network is now covered by 21 Mbps HSPA+ and that it intends to cover 250 million POPs by year-end with the technology.
For more:
- see this MobileCrunch post
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