T-Mobile announced that it has now lit up 600 MHz Extended Range LTE in more than 900 cities and towns across 32 states.
T-Mobile claims that the Extended Range LTE signals travel twice as far from the tower and are four times better in buildings than mid-band LTE, providing increased coverage and capacity.
The Operator said it has already deployed Extended Range LTE to more than 80 percent of Americans with 700 MHz (Band 12), and rapidly began deploying it with 600 MHz (Band 71) last year to expand coverage and capacity even further.
In April 2017, T-Mobile made its largest network investment ever, tripling its low-band spectrum holdings by purchasing 45% of the spectrum sold in the US government’s 600 MHz auction.
Immediately after receiving the licenses -- less than a year ago – T-Mobile began its rapid 600 MHz Extended Range LTE rollout. To accelerate the process of freeing up the spectrum for LTE, T-Mobile is working with broadcasters occupying 600 MHz spectrum to assist them in moving to new frequencies.
T-Mobile offers six 600 MHz-capable smartphones, with still over a dozen more across all price points expected to launch this year. Starting this month, the Un-carrier will also begin enabling carrier aggregation for 600 MHz Extended Range LTE and mid-band LTE, so customers with capable devices can access the capacity of both at the same time, increasing download speeds.
Neville Ray, CTO, T-Mobile
The team is working at record pace to deploy 600 MHz LTE throughout the country, and we’re already expanding the network and challenging the Duopoly in places they’ve never had to compete before.
