T-Mobile USA's really kicking things into high gear, coming from behind (
way behind, actually) on its 3G launch to become the first to bring 21Mbps HSPA+ here -- and possibly the only one to do it, considering that its closest GSM rival is
leapfrogging from 7.2Mbps HSPA to LTE. Speaking at 4G World in Chicago, T-Mobile's Neville Ray has gone on record saying that its 3G footprint will be blanketed by HSPA+ next year and is actually already up and running in parts of Philadelphia; amusingly, he was apparently a little weirded out by AT&T's earlier comments at the show that it'd have 90 percent of its 3G coverage upgraded to 7.2Mbps by the end of 2011, suggesting that was slow (we'd agree, but then again, considering how far behind T-Mobile still lags in raw 3G coverage, we're not sure they've got room to talk just yet). If we had to guess, this huge push for mega-fast data has to do with
investor discontent on the Deutsche Telekom side of things, so you can bet there are some crossed fingers out in Bellevue as this stuff lights up; now, just give us the
world-class phone selection to match and we'll be good to go.
[Via
Phone Scoop]
posted Sep 18th 2009 3:34PM
how about finishing getting 3G up around the country before worrying about 21mps? they don't have a single city in Oklahoma with 3G
Good point. On a recent trip in Delaware there was no 3G and a friend on T-Mo in California just switched to at&t after he was in an area with no coverage at all. Plus where are the compatible phones? Whats the point of all that theoretical speed if there are no high end devices to take advantage of it?
Edmond repruhzent, dawg!
Not to mention the cities where they DO have coverage all use that wonky frequency that most unlocked GSM phones don't support. You have to buy one of the phones especially made for (carried by?) T-mobile.
Yeah no thanks.
Oklahoma has a city?
@theefman
Or what's the point of getting a 3G phone if the network is over saturated with bandwidth hog crap such as iPhone?
good call on the picture, ziegler.
holy shit i live in philly!!!
i feel like i won a recession antidote (what happened to those by the way)
You're gonna eat lightning and you're gonna crap thunder.
21Mbps huh? They will probably put a 1gig/month download cap on that and charge $97/month with a $5/MB over cap fee.
seriously at 21Mbps you can use up your 5GB monthly limit in a bit under 9 minutes.
@kuei I take it you are an AT&T customer.
@trevor Haven't you heard? The recession is over.
they dont even have 3g here wtf?
I understand 3G is better, but EDGE for me is quite fast, unless it's a huge download... so why not just wait? Another thing I'd say is that 21Mbps is really good, but I think they should expand their 3G for now. It's very fast already.
let me guess your home Internet connection is blazing fast dial up connection
Is this a joke? What type of phone do you have? Edge does not render mobile pages quickly lets not discuss trying to use actual content. Also when streaming music or video you are constantly using it so the option to "wait" is not really even possible. You must be the guy who claims his 2 hour commute lasts 45 minutes and that its not that bad.
EDGE is quite fast? Hahaha, thanks for making my day.
edge is fast but not fast enough for sites like youtube streaming.
P.S.
C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!
I've been streaming Pandora on EDGE since the Android app came out and it actually works pretty well. About 5 seconds to buffer the first song and then after that there isn't any buffering. Web pages load up just fine as well. It's not 3G but for what I'm doing on my phone, EDGE is very usable.
In my experience using both Edge and 3G on a Google Ion (myTouch 3G), the difference isn't all that dramatic for most of what I use the phone for. Browsing small mobile sites is significantly faster on 3G, but browsing full size desktop sites is only marginally faster. I think it's because the latency is terrible regardless of which speed you're connected to, so the more objects on the page the less your connection speed matters.
Edge also gets the job done quite well for streaming YouTube videos and Pandora stations, there's maybe 6 seconds of lead-in buffering instead of 3 seconds on 3G.
Honestly, my biggest gripe with Edge data is that it causes interference noises on my headphones. If I'm listening to music (even on a separate device) anywhere near the phone while it's connected on Edge, I get constant high-pitched chirping sounds as it trickles data back and forth. If it's connected to 3G it jumps to a different frequency and there's no interference noise.
Clearly, this guy must be a relative of the "Slowskys"
Wait, what? Where I live EDGE tops out at below 56k. Usually 20-something K due to all the people.
They have had half a decade to go to 3g now I am supposed to believe in 12 months they are gonna magic this shit.
"investor discontent on the Deutsche Telekom side of things"
I think investor discontent is enough to set your ass on fire. So, I think their shit is going to do some magic now. Until now, they had a free ride, so they were taking their own damned sweet time.
They did have like a full year delay in their 3G rollout because they were waiting for the previous occupants of their 1700mhz frequency to move their asses out. That's not an issue this time around.
And I believe that there are some areas of the country where the government still hasn't vacated the 1700mhz spectrum making the roll out slower than expected.
This would be good, if they roll it out nationwide before the end of 2010...hopefully they'll get to the west coast sooner than later.
I find this all really hard to believe that T-Mobile will have all this done by the end of 2010 considering that T-Mobile 3G is still not in my area and several other areas. Here, all the other carriers have 3G and Spring just launched 4G. Where's the love T-Mobile? It's been way too long being patient.
Although I do feel sorta bad for the folks that for some odd reason enjoy living in the sticks, here in ATL, my 3G is faster than the garbage AT&T puts out for its customers. So a bump up in speed would be a greatly appreciated gesture and feel it is necessary to keep up in the game. Im sure they wont stop increasing their 3G coverage area while they are increasing speeds. From my understanding, its only an upgrade to software and not hardware. Also pretty sure that focus is going to be where majority of their business lies, in big cities. I think Verizon has the more rural areas on lock.
I totally agree. I live in the metro Detroit area, and TMO 3G is damn good. But... anything north or west of Pontiac... and it's our old friend EDGE. I do feel bad that it's not uniform coverage across the board like other carriers, but I'm still happy.
People are worried that TMO should keep upgrading to 3G in other cities before moving to HSPA+, but in reality it is entirely possible for them to do the upgrade to HSPA+ alongside opening up 3G in other cities/markets. It's a software upgrade (though it still costs them time and money), so it's not a big deal at all.
Still waiting for 3G in PR :(
Here in Northern Ireland we are making the leap from 1.8 to 3.6 Mbps for the 40 or so percent of the population that can get it!
Wait, wait, hold the phone: you're telling me that people will be able to connect at a higher rate on 3G faster than what I'm getting from TWC (10Mbps)? Maybe I need grab a MyFi and tell TWC to suck it.
Enjoy your 5gb monthly bandwidth cap.
10GB.
Also, with TWC rolling out 40GB caps on hardwired connections, it's gonna be awefully hard to bitch about *faster* *wireless* connections.
You see, going directly to HSPA+ would be MUCH better than spreading 3G, and there is a VERY good reason for that.
If they go super fast right now, they can advertise being fastest in the country, and if they role out 3G now, they won't have money left to upgrade the Towers AGAIN, within 2-3 years, and by then these old 3G towers will already be dated.
That's what I think, anyway.
you think right
Almost a year after rollout, they don't even cover all of san diego with 3g yet...
There are phones that can utilize it. Not even mentioning the feature phones, they have the
G1
myTouch 3G
Dash 3G
Sidekick 09
Touch Pro2
and the upcoming Moto CLIQ
What phone do you know that are HSPA+ compatible? I barely know any phones that are HSPA 7.2 compatible except the iphone 3GS. so a HSPA+ 21Mbps phone is still far away.
Chicago is Fast and this will make it Faster, sweet. A few new phones coming out will make this sweet.
Chicago is fast? I wish tmo had some BB's that had 3G...
I got the 8900 a few months ago, and it doesn't have 3G and the EDGE is painful!
Not sure if its RIM's fault or Tmo (since RIM made it for tmo, it didn't include 3G i guess).
You've got to be kidding me!!! I use T-mobile and it has the crappiest 2G network in my city! I think they should have more GSM coverage before they move to higher speeds, otherwise Verizon will get all their business...
You don't understand how the telecom business works then. First off there's places where T-Mobile simply CANNOT expand into, due to federal regulations. For example, if the frequencies for regular GSM coverage are taken, they won't be allowed in there for GSM coverage, so why bother going in at all?
And I hope you realize no single company has the ENTIRE US even covered by every square inch. This includes Verizon and AT&T. Look at their coverage maps. There's areas where few people live. There's restricted areas. But things can change.
AT&T and Verizon continue to expand their coverage too. And did so while they were also starting up their own 3G networks. Should they have waited til they got all towers in place before they started 3G? No, because they'd never get it. Companies are ALWAYS expanding coverage.
tl;dr: Think before you speak.
Tmobile iPhone? Lol, I can feel my ranking drop as I type.
-1 cause you speek truth.
T-mobile should be focusing on getting coverage where there service map CLAIMS there is coverage aka mid hudson valley
What about latency? The biggest pain with cell phone data isn't the bandwidth, its the roundtrip time.
Thats nice and all but the Tmobile phone service does not even pick up in my area and I live near a major city. They need to focus on better coverage
As a Philadelphia resident and T-Mobile subscriber I am psyched by this news.
They do need to expand their 3G coverage, I was just a mile outside of the Philly city limits and was only able to get EDGE, and two bars at that.
Also I only get EDGE where I work in Malvern, PA, but I do get full bars.
whats good fellow philadelphian? there arent enough of us here... im psyched too by the way :D
what
I vote Orlando should be next for this 21Mbps hotness. All the tourists need fast Internet, right? :-)
I am completely psyched out about this. I live in Chicago and the coverage is great so now all I have to do is wait for them to come out with a phone capable of these speeds. I know the Nokia N900 can only go up to 10Mbs on the down link. They need to come out with a phone or two that can handle this speed before they get the network going so I can buy it and then be surprised by the ridiculous speed one day soon.
21mpbs...if youre the only one in philly using it, maybe
Honolulu also got regular 3g today too. I live in Albuquerque and unfortunately I only get 3g in my call center (but that should change hopefully within the month or 2). I love t-mobile :)
kudos to t-mo, i love competition. sprint release the first 4G network, Verizon going LTE in 2010 and at&t going HSPA 7.2. Must have put t-mo in a corner and the came back fighting strong. unfortunately i agree with the majority of people here and think that they should concentrate on improving their coverage and adding more 3G coverage to more cities.
I'm on at&t and im excited about HSPA 7.2 because the iphone 3GS is already HSPA ready. however i don't know what type of hardware a phone would need to get 21mbps because you would need a lot of processor power and ram to handle this kind of data speeds.
and i agree with engadget on the fact that it would take at&t a lot longer to complete their upgrades considering their 3G network is of decent size. not to hate on t-mo but their 3G coverage is barely noticeable on the map.
they should spend more money on upgrading their GSM coverage, considering that they are not roaming partners with at&t anymore. i have been on the t-mo forums and a lot of customers that depended on at&t roaming to use their t-mo phone are not getting service anymore and are planning on dropping t-mobile. every person i know including my self in NYC has left t-mobile because coverage inside building is horrible to say the least. i would love to go back to t-mobile but they don't have the coverage and thats were their money should be.
The phone service does not even pick up here, why waste time with this? They need to work on expanding the network. I can't even use Tmobile and I live near a major city
From what I've heard T-Mobile has the slowest 3G network currently (in bits per second in practice) though reliability AFAIK is okay.
This should catapult them into "fastest in the pack", provided they have 20 Mbps of backhaul per tower. If they do, and if they can get their service rolled out to the places I frequent (Denver metro and central TX) before Sprint/Clear/Comcast get WiMAX to those places, I'm definitely picking up one of their mobile broadband cards.
I just hope that the caps on HSPA+ will be higher, though since we're talking 3.95G (:p) that probably won't happen.
ahahah Here in Italy (a.k.a zimbabwe) the highest speed at home is only 20mb/s we sucks!
This is pretty awesome that it's rolling out else where. In Australia we already got our 21mbps/downlink with a 5.8mbps/uplink. Surprisingly Telstra only charge $89/5gb/unlimited or $119/10gb/unlimited just gets shaped.
for the low low price of a child (First , second, third, fourth born) per month.
Does anyone know if this will be running just like Tmobile's current 3G? Meaning you need both 1700 and 2100 to support the technology. My Sony Xperia X1i lacks the 1700 support so I was not able to get 3G on Tmobile and had to switch to AT&T. Hoping Tmobile will ditch the 1700 band with this new service, so I can switch back to Tmobile. AT&T's data is terrible if you don't live right next to a tower.
Read this for my full rant
http://blog.whitesites.com/Sony-Xperia-X1i-gets-H-and-not-3G-on-ATT__633839689537536901_blog.htm
we already have that speed in Kuwait from Zain telecom with 60GB monthly download limit
Sounds like a good idea and all but.. T-Mobile should really focus on coverage rather than just speed in certain areas. Some major cities still don't even have 3G support yet.
Living in the Philly region I'm very interested in this. But I'm trying to see if there's truth behind this and find out what devices support it.
Well I cant say that you are fast movers in the telecom industry over there "America". Here in Sweden we have had 21 for 2 years now, and that covers the entire country (just a few glaps in the woods to the north. BUt we still think 21 is to slow, so therefore next year, with the start in "jan" we will have 4G, iwth 100mbit/s
What Tmobile devices actually take advantage of this? I happen to live in philadelphia and 3G wasn't so great.
google "fcc auction".
Also, they're currently launching a new 3g city every 1.6 days. That's a VERY fast pace. They're catching up very quickly.
Go Rocky! You can win!
This is good news for me! I live an hour North of Philly in the Lehigh Valley, and just started to get 3G coverage. Now, I'll get an even faster connection sooner than most of America! Ha! Eat it AT&T apologists!