T-Mobile announced it has deployed the world's first 600 MHz LTE network site in Cheyenne, Wyoming using Nokia equipment, two months after the the company received its low-band spectrum licenses from the FCC.
T-Mobile plans to deploy new sites using the low-band spectrum at "record-shattering pace", promising less congested networks and better coverage, especially for indoors and also rural areas. It aims to deploy additional 10 600 MHz sites by end of the year to help increase its total LTE coverage from 315 million Americans today to 321 million.
To meet this aggressive timeline, T-Mobile said it has been coordinating closely with the infrastructure providers, chipset makers and device manufacturers to bring 600 MHz LTE to customers at breakneck speed. To further support its rollout plans, Nokia and Qualcomm have launched new technology, and both Samsung and LG plan to launch phones that tap into this new spectrum in the fourth quarter of this year.
John Legere, President and CEO, T-Mobile
Earlier this month, wireless customers coast to coast proved T-Mobile already delivers America’s best unlimited network. We swept the competition in OpenSignal’s report on all counts—a global industry first. And that was beforewe started lighting up the world’s first 600 MHz LTE network.
Rajeev Suri, President and CEO, Nokia
We knew this spectrum would be key for covering wide areas, providing bandwidth in hard-to-reach places, augmenting capacity and improving data speeds, so we began testing and readying 600 MHz network infrastructure equipment and software long before the incentive auction was over.
