Good news this weekend for T-Mobile customers. The carrier is finally taking advantage of its recent MetroPCS merger, and has begun rolling out higher-speed LTE service by tapping the airwaves it acquired as part of the acquisition.
According to a report from AllThingsD, T-Mobile quietly turned on the faster service in parts of North Dallas just before Thanksgiving. The higher speeds come by combining the spectrum from both T-Mobile’s and MetroPCS’ networks…
AllThingsD’ Ina Fried reports:
“T-Mobile has started rolling out higher-speed LTE service by tapping the airwaves it acquired as part of its MetroPCS acquisition.
Just before Thanksgiving, T-Mobile quietly turned on the faster service in parts of North Dallas. The higher speeds come by combining T-Mobile’s LTE spectrum with that originally held by MetroPCS. Combining the spectrum allows so-called 20-by-20 service, or double the amount of spectrum T-Mobile had been able to offer in most markets.”
Fried goes on to say that T-Mobile plans to eventually offer the expanded LTE service in some 90% of the top 25 markets in the United States. But just how long that will take depends on how quickly it can offload existing network traffic.
Now that all 4 major US wireless carriers have established their LTE networks, their attentions have turned to improving speeds and, more importantly, capacity. Verizon users are already noticing a significant slow-down in high-traffic areas.
Improved capacity and speed were two of the benefits T-Mobile touted when it announced its MetroPCS acquisition last fall. The deal, which added more than 9 million users to T-Mobile’s subscriber base, was completed in May of this year.