Since the network just went online and it doesn’t have an established user base, it will be several months before we start seeing reliable figures from testing companies like RootMetrics or OpenSignal, but we can get idea of how T-Mobile’s network will perform based on what we know about the spectrum and the technology its using. As I’ve detailed before, no two LTE networks are created equal, and T-Mobile has some advantages that will help its 4G service outpace its competitors.

A work in progress

Let’s tackle the spectrum first. T-Mobile is launching in the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band, using spectrum it has culled from the ongoing reconfiguration of its networks as well as the licenses it won from Ma Bell after the AT&T-Mo merger failed. That gives it enough to deploy a 20 MHz (that’s 10 MHz upstream and 10 MHz downstream) network in some markets, but only 10 MHz in others.

To put that in perspective, Verizon Wireless has launched a 20 MHz network nationwide, as has AT&T with a few notable exceptions in certain cities. Sprint is building a 10 MHz network nationwide. As we’ve seen from Root’s most recent report, AT&T’s and Verizon’s now fully loaded LTE networks are averaging between 14 and 18 Mbps on the downlink and between 8 and 9 Mbps on the uplink. Sprint’s half-sized — though relatively new — network is still managing an impressive 10 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up.

We can expect to see some correlation between those speeds and T-Mobile’s after it loads its new 4G network up with subscribers. But T-Mobile isn’t stopping there.

Neville Ray, CTO, T-Mobile (c) 2012 Pinar Ozger pinar@pinarozger.com

As T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray refarms more 3G spectrum for LTE, he will be able to boost many of its 10 MHz systems  to a full 20 MHz, but the real prize comes after it closes its acquisition of MetroPCS (which at this point seems almost a given). Surgically adding Metro’s AWS spectrum to the current network will give it 40 MHz of LTE in some key markets. That’s twice the capacity of the systems currently run by Verizon and AT&T.

Sometimes it pays to wait

As for technology, let’s just say there are some advantages from being late to market.

By virtue of its dallying, T-Mobile is deploying the latest-generation Ericsson and Nokia Siemens base station gear. T-Mobile is fond of calling its network “LTE-Advanced ready,” and though the term really is just a marketing conceit, there’s a bit of truth in those words. LTE is an iterative technology that improves over time. Because of its relative newness, T-Mobile’s infrastructure will be able to take new LTE upgrades more easily and more cheaply, and as device technology improves, T-Mobile will be able to support next-generation radio chipsets sooner.

Technically even T-Mobile’s most modest 10 MHz network could today support a theoretical downlink of 37.5 Mbps (though real-world network speeds would be much less) when connecting to the latest and greatest devices. Once it gets to the 40 MHz networks, however, T-Mobile’s 4G service would be truly awe-inspiring, boasting a theoretical ceiling of 150 Mbps.

Of course, 150 Mbps may seem a bit ridiculous for your typical smartphone user, but the justification for those speeds isn’t to create individual super connections, but to produce more capacity that can be shared by more users. The more data T-Mobile can deliver to a large subset of user, the cheaper it can make data pricing. And making data cheaper is one of the main ways T-Mobile is setting itself apart from the competition.

Feature photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Villiers Steyn

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OpenSignal has recorded more than 1,500 signal strength readings in eight metropolitan areas from devices connected to T-Mobile’s network: Denver, Kansas City, Las Vegas, New Orleans, New York City, San Diego, Seattle and the Bay Area. OpenSignal has mapped those signal readings on its blog, though it represents multiple signal readings as single data points, largely to respect the privacy of the testers.

Though the network isn’t commercially launched, OpenSignal CEO Brendan Gill told me that its crowdsourced app is popular with engineers at all of the carriers for ad hoc network measurements. What we’re most likely seeing, Gill said, is a bunch of technical workers from T-Mobile and its vendor partners that have the OpenSignal app loaded and running on their test devices. A good indication of this is that one of the devices sending data is a Samsung Galaxy S4, which isn’t yet available to the general public.

T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray has already confirmed that its LTE network is complete in Las Vegas and Kansas City, so test data from those cities is hardly a surprise. We’ve also seen evidence of the network in NYC: A GigaOM reader mapped out a cluster of cells in Astoria, Queens, and T-Mobile has given several live 4G demos to reporters in Manhattan.

The other five areas are new, but because of their importance you would expect them to show up early on T-Mobile’s national rollout schedule. OpenSignal recorded the biggest concentrations of tests in San Jose, Calif., and surrounding Bay Area cities like Mountain View, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. OpenSignal even tracked tests in the East Bay, but recorded none in San Francisco proper.

The Seattle area had the second highest concentration of readings, many of them around Bellevue, which just happens to be the location of T-Mobile’s national headquarters. Las Vegas yielded many data points as well, though the signal readings in Denver, Kansas City, New Orleans, New York and San Diego were much more sparse.

OpenSignal also recorded about a dozen speed tests on T-Mobile’s LTE network, averaging an impressive 25 Mbps on the downlink and 8 Mbps on the uplink (though keep in mind that the network is largely empty so there’s no congestion). The speed tests were so few because they must be manually initiated, while OpenSignal’s app takes signal strength readings automatically on a regular basis.

Gill said that he’s fairly convinced that these eight markets will be among the first to launch based on the activity OpenSignal is tracking, though he cautioned that his conclusions don’t constitute a scientific study. The results are dependent on a fairly limited pool of people using OpenSignal’s app, so there are likely many more cities with live LTE networks that the company couldn’t track.

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Though Legere and T-Mobile haven’t said explicitly which Apple device or devices the carrier would sell, the timing would put T-Mobile in line to retail the current-generation iPhone 5 a good four to five months before the smartphone is likely to be refreshed this fall. There’s also the off chance that T-Mobile might be a candidate for the rumored “cheap iPhone” Apple is supposedly developing.

Neville Ray, CTO, T-Mobile (c) 2012 Pinar Ozger pinar@pinarozger.com

What’s more, T-Mobile probably wouldn’t have to sell the iPhone as a mere 3G device as many international operators and smaller U.S. carriers are forced to do. T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray revealed at T-Mo’s big CES event that he would have a good portion of his LTE network online by mid-2013. Couple that with Ray’s rapidly accelerating HSPA+ network upgrade around the country, and T-Mobile will be able to support all of the iPhone 5’s connectivity capabilities in many of its markets at launch. Not bad for a carrier that couldn’t get anything more than a 2G signal to the iPhone just six months ago.

T-Mobile originally planned to launch LTE in the second half of this year, making it the last U.S. operator to deploy the latest generation mobile broadband technology. T-Mobile is still behind its primary competitors, but management has apparent lit a fire under Ray’s engineering team. At CES, Ray said T-Mo’s first LTE systems would go online in Las Vegas in the next few weeks, which would put him five months ahead of schedule.

The iPhone won’t be the only device benefiting from T-Mobile’s accelerated LTE plans. The Verge is reporting that T-Mobile will soon offer an LTE version of the Samsung’s popular Galaxy S III smartphone. Though The Verge didn’t name a launch date, the device could hit shelves well in advance of the actual LTE launch since T-Mobile could activate its LTE radios at any time with a simple over-the-air software update.

T-Mobile had a big CES. In addition to the LTE and iPhone revelations, T-Mobile made multiple updates to its technology and service plans.

• My colleague Kevin Tofel wrote about T-Mobile’s plans to take unlimited smartphone plans contract-free, answering one of T-Mobile customers’ biggest gripes. T-Mobile is moving to an unsubsidized model, meaning customers will either pay full freight for their devices, bring their own phones or buy them in installments. Since contracts are supposed to cover carriers’ upfront subsidy costs, enforcing contracts with no subsidy makes little sense. It will be interesting to see if T-Mobile moves away from contracts completely as it phases out subsidies this year.
• T-Mobile revealed its network is now high-definition-voice compatible, which means it can support a much higher call quality than current cellular voice systems. Three current devices – the Galaxy S III, the HTC One S and the Nokia Astound phone – will support the HD features, but there are also some big limitations to its initial appeal. As PC Mag’s Sascha Segan explains, HD calls will only work between T-Mobile devices that both have the HD client, and so far T-Mo’s technology is incompatible with any of the HD codecs other carriers are working on.
• In order to encourage devices other than smartphones onto is network, T-Mobile is offering 200 MB of free data each month for two years on select Windows 8 laptops. Called 4G Connect, the program could get really interesting if T-Mobile expands it tablets, providing a big incentive for consumers to buy 4G versions of the iPad and other slates.
• T-Mobile has upgraded its HSPA+ network to support iPhone frequencies in four more markets: Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego and Virginia Beach, Va. The network refarming is now complete in 46 cities covering 126 million people. The reconfiguration is key to T-Mobile supporting the iPhone’s data capabilities, and at its current pace should be largely complete at the iPhone’s launch.

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T-Mobile’s networks simply aren’t ready yet. The reason T-Mobile has been left off the iPhone bandwagon for so long is that its HSPA networks don’t support the PCS 3G bands the iPhone uses. T-Mobile is fixing that issue, moving its network down the electromagnetic spectrum as part of a nationwide overhaul.

T-Mobile, however, has officially completed that upgrade in only 15 cities. If the iPhone were to go live next week, the vast majority of T-Mobile’s customers who bought it would experience only 2G speeds. That’s to say nothing of the iPhone 5’s LTE capabilities, which T-Mobile won’t support until the second half of 2013. Considering the iPhone is first and foremost a mobile data device, I don’t think even Apple is willing to unleash it on a network that can perform only a fraction of the data functions it was designed for.

Neville Ray, CTO, T-Mobile (c) 2012 Pinar Ozger pinar@pinarozger.com

That said, T-Mobile is aggressively completing its network overhaul, and it has been inviting customers with unlocked iPhones to sign up for SIM-card service. Readers have reported receiving T-Mobile PCS HSPA+ signals all over the country, especially in big metro markets like New York City and Chicago. T-Mo CTO Neville Ray has promised a “material” portion of its footprint will be iPhone-ready by the end of the year.

Make no mistake: the iPhone is bound for T-Mobile. It’s just a question of technology and timing. But unless Ray can somehow complete his nationwide overhaul in the next few weeks, the timing just isn’t right. Logistically that seems impossible, even for network miracle-worker like Ray. In recent weeks, T-Mobile has even tried to distance itself from Apple, claiming the iPhone isn’t necessarily worth the sacrifices.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll hear something from Apple next week about a T-Mobile iPhone, maybe even a commitment to partner with T-Mobile sometime in the future. One of the new iPhone-ready markets T-Mobile announced last week was Apple’s hometown of Cupertino, Calif. You can’t argue with that symbolism. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on getting a magenta iPhone by Christmas.

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On Tuesday, though, T-Mobile made that network upgrade official throughout the Bay Area as well as in parts of Arizona and Florida. T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray wrote in a blog post that it has switched on HSPA+ networks over the 1900 MHz PCS band in San Francisco, Oakland, Modesto, Stockton and across Silicon Valley. It’s also completed the upgrade in Phoenix, Mesa and Tucson, Ari.; as well as in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

That makes 15 cities in total where T-Mobile has “refarmed” its old 2G spectrum for HSPA+ (the other five are Las Vegas, Kansas City, Baltimore, Houston and Washington, DC). But expect the rest of T-Mo’s network to be converted quickly. T-Mobile has to complete the HSPA+ upgrade nationwide before it can start turning on its new LTE network in the second half of 2013. T-Mobile’s Ray has also stated the carrier will have a “material” HSPA+ footprint at PCS by the end of the year.

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All of this is happening because T-Mobile is in the midst of a spectrum re-farm exercise: Switching its HSPA+ service away from the relatively unique 1700 MHz bands and over to 1900 MHz; the same frequency used by AT&T devices for HSPA+. T-Mobile is doing so in order to free up the 1700 MHz spectrum for its LTE network. While that network is some time off in the future — watch for it next year — the immediate benefit is for people wanting to use AT&T devices on T-Mobile’s network to save some money on their monthly service bill.

But this isn’t all about saving money if you’re an AT&T customer with an iPhone or some other HSPA+ device. According to T-Mobile CTO, Neville Ray, there’s a speed bonus.

In a blog post, Ray notes that “Our internal tests of unlocked iPhone 4S devices running over 4G (HSPA+) on our 1900 network recorded on average 70% faster download speeds than iPhone 4S devices on AT&T’s network.” Obviously if you have an LTE device, this scenario doesn’t apply, but it appears that in these particular testing areas, T-Mobile likely has support for 42 Mbps HSPA+ while AT&T doesn’t yet.

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This deal purportedly makes a struggling nationwide operator more competitive, rather than eliminate a nationwide competitor from the market. This is the kind of merger regulators want to encourage. The other thing that could potential muck up the deal is a counter bid for MetroPCS from Sprint. But so far the company has held off, and at the moment Sprint seems to have its hands full dealing with its own potential acquirer Softbank.

Assuming this deal gets blessed, what implications does the combined company – which I shall refer to as “T-Metro” for the rest of this post — have for its customers? On day one of the merger’s closing, subscribers won’t notice anything at all. T-Metro will maintain both networks and doesn’t plan to interrupt services in any way. But soon after, customers on both networks will start seeing gradual changes to services, devices and coverage. Let’s break them down.

If you’re a MetroPCS subscriber

MetroPCS customers should expect to see the biggest changes for the simple reason that their networks and devices they use will simply cease to function in a two-to-three year period. By the end of 2015, T-Metro plans to remove all traces of Metro’s CDMA and LTE infrastructure from the grid, and it plans to replace every CDMA phone with a new HSPA device.

But T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray pledged to make transition as seamless and painless as possible. MetroPCS customers can keep using their current CDMA phones all the way into 2015, which is the final sunset date for Metro’s systems. T-Metro may even continue to sell new CDMA phones for a short period while it gets its device portfolio and distribution chain in order, Neville Ray.

But not too long after closing, customers browsing in MetroPCS stores and on its Website will notice those old CDMA handsets disappearing, replaced by the GSM/HSPA available to T-Mobile’s customers. There will be a lag between the merger’s finalization and the deployment of the unified T-Metro LTE network, which will roll out in the latter half of 2013 and in 2014. But once those new 4G systems are up, those new handsets will include LTE radios as well.

At that point, MetroPCS customers with CDMA-LTE phones should also experience a big boost in both 4G speeds and coverage. MetroPCS customers will get a firmware update on their phones that will allow them to access the new T-Metro LTE network. That means they will eventually see 4G connections nationwide, instead of merely in MetroPCS’s 14-city footprint. And as T-Metro shoehorns Metro’s 4G spectrum into its combined super-LTE network, Metro customers will start seeing speed increases as much as four times greater than what they experience today.

Sometime in 2015, customers holding onto their CDMA phones will have to relinquish them, but T-Mobile’s Ray doesn’t expect to many of those customers to remain. More than 60 percent of Metro subscribers upgrade to new handsets each year. And once you factor in the normal churn of departing customers, T-Metro should have replaced the large majority of its CDMA install base by the time the shutdown countdown reaches zero. The remainder should start receiving offers from T-Metro for free or discounted devices to entice them over to the new network.

It’s not all roses, though. T-Metro will start shutting down portions of the CDMA capacity in 2014, long before the official sunset date. That means customers will have to vie with one another for fewer 2G signals to place their voice calls. T-Metro, however, plans to mitigate this by coordinating the shut down of 2G capacity with the migration of customers off the network – fewer CDMA devices mean fewer overall calls that need to be supported.

Finally, the single big casualty from the merger may be Metro’s voice-over-LTE service. Ray said T-Metro would support the mobile VoIP service until the last MetroPCS handset is switched off, but hasn’t decided whether it will continue its aggressive VoLTE plans.

MetroPCS plans to put VoLTE to more handsets and roll out the service to its entire coverage footprint in the next few months, so by the time the merger closes it could have an extensive VoLTE subscriber base. T-Mobile has promised that VoLTE will work on its LTE networks as well, expanding the service’s coverage nationwide. But what will most likely happen is T-Metro will wind VoLTE down naturally as customers switch to GSM/HSPA handsets. A year or two later, T-Metro will launch its own unified VoLTE platform available to all of the carriers’ customers.

If you’re a T-Mobile subscriber

For most T-Mobile customers the creation of T-Metro will mean business as usual. They’ll keep the same handsets, voice and data plans and coverage. Their device selection won’t change, but there may be one immediate benefit to customers in service plan choice. CEO John Legere has said the new T-Metro would maintain the prepaid contract-free unlimited data plans that are MetroPCS’s specialty.

Currently T-Mobile offers truly unlimited data tiers for its contract customers, but all of its prepaid plans have soft caps (if you go over your monthly data allotments, connections are throttled down to 2G speeds). Such an unlimited prepaid option would be a boon for month-to-month customers and the growing number of subscribers that bring their own unlocked smartphones to T-Mobile’s network.

T-Mobile customers who happen to live in a MetroPCS market will eventually get access that to a big fat 4G pipe. Combining the two carriers’ 1700 MHz/2100 MHz Advanced Wireless Service (AWS) airwaves will allow T-Metro to deploy an LTE network with as much as 40 MHz of capacity in 10 of the largest markets in the US, including New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston and San Francisco. To put that in perspective, Verizon and AT&T currently use 20 MHz of spectrum for their LTE networks.

If you happen to live in a non-MetroPCS market like Chicago or Seattle, the new T-Metro will still give you LTE just not in such plentiful bandwidths. The above map from Mosaik Solutions shows just where MetroPCS owns spectrum. In general, the darker the color in a city, the more powerful the future 4G network will be.

Unfortunately, there is one immediate benefit to the merger that the two carriers won’t take advantage of. The day the deal closes in the spring, T-Metro will own a 14-market LTE footprint long before T-Mobile’s own LTE network is complete. Earlier, I speculated that would be welcome news for T-Mo customers who bring their own unlocked LTE-capable devices like the iPhone 5. T-Mobile has confirmed, however, that those customers won’t get access to MetroPCS’s 4G networks.

T-Mobile’s LTE systems will already be under construction at that point, but there will still be a lag – anywhere from three months to well over a year – before the unified LTE network rolls out in individual markets. So if you live in New York or San Francisco and buy an unlocked iPhone 5 for use on T-Mobile’s network, expect to wait a bit longer before that LTE icon pops up on your notification bar.

Question links image courtesy Flickr user Oberazzi.

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As you can see from the first map, MetroPCS owns some big swathes of spectrum, but like most carriers it hasn’t deployed networks throughout its license territory. Instead its focused on the bigger markets and populated regions of its footprint.

Pay particular close attention to the darker splotches on the map. In some regions MetroPCS owns considerable spectral bandwidth – in some cases more than 50 MHz – but for the most part those dense concentrations of airwaves aren’t in big cities. Still T-Mobile is going to get a 20 MHz capacity boost in most of the cities where MetroPCS currently operates. Plus T-Mobile will be able to take advantage of Metro’s unused airwaves outside of the big cities, if it feels the needs.

The second Mosaik map shows where the coverage of T-Mobile and MetroPCS actually overlaps. These are live networks as opposed to spectrum holdings so where there’s color you should actually see a signal. In those purple areas, T-Mobile’s network is going to a significant LTE capacity boost. In many areas it will have enough spare PCS airwaves to build out new dual-carrier HSPA+ networks.

The third and fourth Mosaik maps should be viewed together. The third shows all of T-Mobile’s current spectrum holdings before MetroPCS is layered on, showing where T-Mo owns frequencies but necessarily where it’s built networks.

The last map is the two carriers’ combined spectral holdings, which should give you an idea of the networks they could potential build.

Pay attention to the red parts. These are what T-Mobile is really after in the merger. In those red regions it will have more than 70 MHz of overall capacity, which frankly is going to make T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray do backflips. With that much capacity there’s frankly no network AT&T or Verizon can build that T-Mobile can’t match. Depending on how quickly the new ‘T-Metro’ moves, it could beat its larger competitors to those cities with a big honking 40 MHz network that puts any 4G network so far deployed to shame.

But also note that those red patches only cover a handful of big cities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Detroit, Atlanta and Miami. Even in cities where T-Mo stands to gain substantial frequencies like New York City and Philadelphia, the new merged carrier won’t cross that 70 MHz threshold. MetroPCS is going to give T-Mobile a lot of capacity in some key markets, but its not a spectrum panacea.

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T-Mobile has been overhauling its network, realigning them with the 3G bands supported on most North American GSM phones, while simultaneously clearing frequencies for its future LTE network. T-Mobile has already revealed that it has converted over thousands of cell sites in New York City, Seattle and Las Vegas and many of T-Mobile’s current customers using unlocked iPhones have already encountered big boosts in speeds on a site by site basis.

But Ray said Friday that the spectrum refarming process is now 75 percent complete in Vegas, providing the consistency of coverage necessary to let start marketing HSPA+ to potential iPhone users. Until now, any iPhone on T-Mobile’s network was limited to 2G EDGE speeds.

Older generations of the iPhone won’t be able to access the full bandwidth of T-Mobile’s dual-carrier HSPA+ network, which can support theoretical speeds of 42 Mbps — though they will still get 3G connectivity — but anyone willing to shell out the dough for an unlocked iPhone 5 would be able to access the fastest HSPA network in the country. LTE support on T-Mobile, however, won’t be available until next year when its network overhaul is complete.

As for the rest of the country, Ray said its quickly turning up the new HSPA+ network at PCS in cities nationwide. He wouldn’t reveal any specifics on when the process will be finished, but he has said that a “material” portion of T-Mo’s footprint will be iPhone ready by year-end.

Check out the rest of our Mobilize 2012 coverage here, and the live stream can be found here.

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Legere, 54, will officially change offices on Sept. 22, when interim CEO Jim Alling will return to his old job as T-Mobile’s COO. From his resume, Alling Legere seems like an odd choice. Global Crossing, which was acquired by Level 3 Communications last year, was a submarine cable operator providing the fiber connections that link continents, not a consumer-facing wireless business. Legere had a stint at Dell Computer, but the last time he worked at a retail carrier was in 1998 at AT&T, and even there he wasn’t working in the cellular or consumer side of the house. He managed AT&T’s Asian wireline business operations and headed up corporate strategy.

But then again, someone unaccustomed to how things are usually done in the US mobile industry is exactly what T-Mobile needs right now. If T-Mobile is to succeed it will be through challenging the status quo established by AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which collectively manage two-thirds of all US mobile connections. T-Mobile started down that path after its planned merger with AT&T failed last year. As I wrote when Humm departed in June, T-Mobile’s new CEO shouldn’t change a thing about strategy. It’s not clear whether Legere is going to listen to GigaOM, but hopefully he’ll listen to the T-Mobile’s more-than-capable staff, who started laying the foundation of that challenger strategy long before DT got into bed with Ma Bell.

T-Mobile is questioning the long-accepted accepted pricing models in the US mobile market. It’s moving customers away from device subsidies and in the process eliminating the hidden device “mortgage” payments we make on our monthly bills. It’s offering data plans at a steep discount to AT&T and Verizon, and it recently rejoined Sprint in selling an unlimited smartphone plan.

On the network side, T-Mobile is taking advantage of the limited spectrum resources it has to overhaul its network, shutting down old 2G networks so it can repurpose their airwaves for an LTE network as well as eke out more 3G capacity. In the process, it’s realigning its networks bands with the major North American GSM operators, which will give it access to a greater variety of devices – including the new iPhone. (T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray will detail that transformation at GigaOM’s Mobilize Conference this Friday.)

That network overhaul, however, can’t come soon enough. As the only nationwide US operator sans iPhone, T-Mobile is suffering customer defections it can’t stem no matter how cheap it makes its data plans. T-Mobile is actually 400,000 subscribers smaller today than it was at this time last year.

Legere is going to have to figure out how to staunch that subscriber bleed, but hopefully he won’t do it by reversing T-Mobile’s course and emulating the big operators. Though T-Mobile once had dreams of mega-carrier glory, the failure of AT&T-Mo put an end to those fantasies. Whether it likes it or not, T-Mobile’s new role is that of the market challenger, and it’s not going to succeed by playing the same game as its bigger rivals.

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