T-Mobile now hosts 1.9M iPhones, first LTE market goes online by February

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8B3A2hcU5c

T-Mobile’s iPhone-friendly service rolled out in fourteen new metro areas to close out 2012. The high-speed HSPA+ service on the 1900MHz band, which is compatible with the iPhone, now covers more than a hundred million people in the United States. Though it still doesn’t officially carry Apple’s iconic smartphone, the Deutsche Telekom-owned wireless company has nano SIMs for your iPhone 5 and provides free support to unlockers willing to bring their iPhone and sign up for T-Mobile’s unlimited 4G data.

While this won’t be enough to prevent customer defections that are now hurting its bottom line, it seems iPhone owners are increasingly coming to T-Mobile as its HSPA+ becomes available in more markets. Just in December, the carrier hosted 1.7 million iPhone devices on its network, but the figure has now surged to 1.9 million iPhones…

As TmoNews explains, T-Mobile CEO John Legere just confirmed during 2013 Citi Global Conference in Las Vegas today that his company is now observing around a hundred thousand iPhone activations on its network every month.

With the numbers Legere mentioned, it’s easy to imagine that T-Mobile is eager to get their “Apple Product” deal rolled out as soon as possible. Legere further mentioned that the company currently serves 1.9 million iPhone devices and is adding 100k new devices every month.

That would indicate T-Mobile added 200,000 iPhone users in just 30 days.

The executive, according to another TmoNews report, also hinted the carrier will begin deploying its first LTE market in two to three weeks:

Given the importance of Las Vegas with events like the Consumer Electronics Show, it’s not surprising that “Sin City” will be the first market to get the green light. If you recall, Las Vegas was one of the first markets to showcase HSPA+, HSPA+ 42Mbps and thenetwork modernization project back during Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference.

Should the carrier continue to grow its base of iPhone customers, perhaps Apple will relent and cut that deal with T-Mobile sooner than later.

If anything, we at least know for a fact that T-Mobile will start carrying the iPhone later this year.

Are you looking forward to the official Apple/T-Mobile USA deal?