Comments on: T-Mobile pounds the first nail in 2G’s coffin

By: JasonC

JasonC — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 06:02:22 +0000

Correct, once tmobile refarms the spectrum you will no longer be receiving their edge signal therefore the 2G option will not be of use to you as you wont be receiving the signal. What tmo is doing is very smart, they will use the spectrum they have to deliver fast speeds and more capacity for a low price. They can count me and my iPhone in, the only thing stopping me before was that i could only get edge speeds, but now that they are working on bringing 3g to iPhones im definitely making the switch with my unlocked iphone

By: quickgamer88

quickgamer88 — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 04:58:00 +0000

Reblogged this on quickgamer88.

By: P

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:12:34 +0000

Does that mean the option to “use 2G only” mode to save battery would no longer work? I’m a bit confused by this whole frequency talk. I don’t receive T-Mo’s HSPA service at all, only EDGE, so will the new changes make it possible to get HSPA on more frequencies? Somehow HSPA+ is only available when I’m outdoor.

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:24:42 +0000

Hi Niklas,

I hear you, but I don’t buy the propagation argument. Operators deploy much cells much more densely in urban and high-traffic areas (where the capacity is needed), keeping cells much smaller than their propagation would permit. Admittedly 700 MHz is a huge benefit on a rural highway, but the majority of the LTE build is going to be in cities, which means density, which means advantage nullified.

By: Niklas Munck

Niklas Munck — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:25:59 +0000

Although T-Mobile will have the equivalent of Verizon and AT&T spectrum positions allocated to LTE in various markets, their throughput is going to be significantly higher than their competitors. This is not only because they have fewer customers but more importantly, much better spectrum. AT&T and Verizon are building LTE on their 700Mhz frequencies which are more or less useless for capacity. Great for coverage though. T-Mobile spectrum on 1700Mhz will be much better suited for LTE even if they use the comparable number of Mhz as their competitors. The reason for this is that the higher frequencies have worse propagation abilities, resulting in smaller cells. To cover the same area as Verizon and AT&T, T-Mobile will need about 2-4 times the number of towers. Yes, this is more expensive, but with smaller cells, there are fewer people who can geographically be located in each cell, no matter how many customers you have. 700Mhz great for coverage, not so much for capacity, 1700Mhz the other way around.

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:39:06 +0000

Hi Craig,

I’m giddy myself. I love it when operators bite the bullet and make bold technology choices (the problem is always the follow through). As for the dual-band HSPA+, several of T-Mo’s phones already support it. They’ve obviously been preparing for this for a while.

By: Craig Campbell

Craig Campbell — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:21:03 +0000

I think this is a great move by T-Mobile in general, and for me personally it will be a godsend to have HSPA+ on the PCS 1900MHz band. I have an iPhone 4 lying unused, and recently purchased an unlocked international Galaxy Note – which I am unhappily forced to use on AT&T to get HSPA+ speeds on 1900.
My prediction is that the HSPA+ move to 1900 will happen fairly quickly, over the next few months, to have as much of it completed as possible in time for the next iPhone launch in September/October timeframe. This way, Apple do not have to bother with an AWS-capable iPhone, and T-Mobile could potentially offer the same iPhone model as everyone else. Of course, this doesn’t take into account the different LTE bands – but that’s going to be a nightmare in itself. I don’t see how Apple could possibly offer one single model which would work in all the various LTE bands which will be in use all over the world!
Of course, offering the iPhone but without an LTE network will still be a disadvantage to T-Mobile in 2012, but their HSPA+ network is actually fast enough for anything day-to-day in my opinion – they’ll just have to really push the marketing.

The other thing I would expect is that the current AWS HSPA+ would stay active as long as possible running alongside the 1900 HSPA+, in order to support all those users who currently have AWS-only HSPA+ phones. Some of those users will still be within their 2 year contracts when their AWS HSPA+ disappears, so it would behoove T-Mobile to provide replacement phone options, or extremely aggressively priced early upgrades.

In addition, I would expect all T-Mobile phones launched from now – or extremely shortly – to support BOTH AWS HSPA+ and 1900 HSPA+.

We shall see, but in my opinion, this is awesome news!