T-Mobile is deploying 1900MHz HSPA/4G

[terryjohnson16]

The new iPad does not support HSPA over AWS. And, why should it? Even T-Mobile is refarming PCS for HSPA.

i believe it does support but its locked for lte exclusive for att dual band lte network.

tmobile can refarm all they want, but its not gonna help at the moment since many places dont have enough pcs to run hspa and gsm together.

it wont fully support pcs hspa until sometimes next year. Only places at the moment seeing it are areas where pcs is currently at 30 to 50 mhz of spectrum and it wont hurt their 2g network.

nyc cant use pcs hspa right now. my gs2 has pcs 1900 hspa support so i will keep looking here in nyc. but as of right now we as well as many other areas are exclusively aws hspa+. They are maxed out too in places with DC HSPA+ live.

Many of tmobiles early aws phones are exclusive aws hspa phones with no pcs or 850 hspa support. only recently did they start selling tri and quad band hspa device. They still sell aws hspa phones to date.

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[Antenna]

AT&T currently is rolling out LTE over AWS in Chicago. My friend noticed his GSII Skyrocket on the AWS band on LTE the other day.

And, AT&T isn't the one buying the spectrum--it is VZW and they can and will use it.

Yay! Sitting on AWS for years and they have one whole city! That's what I call efficient /sarcasm

Sent from my Incredible S

[RCtennis3811]

AT&T currently is rolling out LTE over AWS in Chicago. My friend noticed his GSII Skyrocket on the AWS band on LTE the other day.

Finally! I was wondering how long they would let 5x5 speeds go on like that and not yet use AWS as a supplement. It makes me wonder how Sprint will keep up with 5x5 LTE nationwide.

On a related now, has anyone said what T-Mobile will use to supplement AWS LTE in markets that will only get 5x5 deployments?

[jet1000]

Yay! Sitting on AWS for years and they have one whole city! That's what I call efficient /sarcasm

T-Mobile has a nationwide license for AWS. Do they have nationwide HSPA+? No. Do they have HSPA+ everywhere they have coverage? No. T-Mobile is very guilty of squatting on a lot of AWS spectrum and letting it go unused. Look at their coverage map for proof.

Ilvla2 has posted that T-Mobile still has not used the AWS spectrum in his area even though they sell service there. Their 3G/4G rollout has been pathetic.

[GSMinCT]

Maybe t-mobile should get AT&T AWS, since they don't use it at all, talk about inefficient

Until the iPhone 5 comes out and actually drives demand for LTE, it will only be used in limited applications to test LTE. There is no need for more than 10x10 or maybe even 5x5 LTE right now. Of course they are overbuilding the network, since when the iPhone hits, there will be a deluge of usage.

AT&T currently is rolling out LTE over AWS in Chicago. My friend noticed his GSII Skyrocket on the AWS band on LTE the other day.

Very interesting. That's a logical market considering how big AT&T is out there and how little 700 they have.

tmobile can refarm all they want, but its not gonna help at the moment since many places dont have enough pcs to run hspa and gsm together.

nyc cant use pcs hspa right now. my gs2 has pcs 1900 hspa support so i will keep looking here in nyc. but as of right now we as well as many other areas are exclusively aws hspa+. They are maxed out too in places with DC HSPA+ live.

You need 15mhz to run them together. AT&T is going to 5mhz of GSM in NYC when the 5th HSPA+ carrier goes up. In markets that T-Mobile has 20mhz, they could easily go to 10 GSM and 10 HSPA+. In markets that they only have 10mhz of spectrum, they can't do PCS HSPA+, since it need 10mhz to deploy.

I think AT&T's plan is to slowly move the whole country over to 5 (CLR markets) or 10 (PCS markets) of GSM, and leave that on for the long term to support MVNOs, ancient phones, and M2M. T-Mobile should follow suit if they are serious about PCS HSPA+.

Yay! Sitting on AWS for years and they have one whole city! That's what I call efficient

It will be deployed. Just not right off the bat. There would be no point in deploying it in every city when there's very few LTE customers right now. Any place that's getting deployed right now is AT&T keeping ahead of the curve, which is a good thing.

T-Mobile has a nationwide license for AWS. Do they have nationwide HSPA+? No. Do they have HSPA+ everywhere they have coverage? No. T-Mobile is very guilty of squatting on a lot of AWS spectrum and letting it go unused. Look at their coverage map for proof.

Ilvla2 has posted that T-Mobile still has not used the AWS spectrum in his area even though they sell service there. Their 3G/4G rollout has been pathetic.

Exactly. They are using probably 10% of it.

[Yglup]

Well people d see the heated discussions here. Got my Note Q weeks ago andguess what? d I am getting 4g speeds! as high as l4 Mb down and around 5 Mb up here in Pittsburgh! For $50 I'm Sticking with Tmobile and believe It or not with thes reforming of 1900. Most rival gsm phones will work. So my question is why pay more to Att or whoever for less?

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[GSMinCT]

Well people d see the heated discussions here. Got my Note Q weeks ago andguess what? d I am getting 4g speeds! as high as l4 Mb down and around 5 Mb up here in Pittsburgh! For $50 I'm Sticking with Tmobile and believe It or not with thes reforming of 1900. Most rival gsm phones will work. So my question is why pay more to Att or whoever for less?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using HowardForums

Coverage. T-Mobile covers a fraction of what AT&T covers, and even less with HSPA+.

[jet1000]

That's excellent news! I have my UMTS 1900 device which I pop my tmobile SIM card in regularly to see if the refarm has begun in my market. No success yet but hopefully soon. Congrats to Pitt, the first major refarm market.

[brad15]

Coverage. T-Mobile covers a fraction of what AT&T covers, and even less with HSPA+.

you know i drive across the country quite a bit and i rarely have issues with T-Mobile's coverage, if they dont cover it, then they usually have roaming on a local carrier to back it up.

in all fairness though, i usually drive major roads, but all in all i rarely if ever have any issues with them

[GSMinCT]

you know i drive across the country quite a bit and i rarely have issues with T-Mobile's coverage, if they dont cover it, then they usually have roaming on a local carrier to back it up.

in all fairness though, i usually drive major roads, but all in all i rarely if ever have any issues with them

Their 3G coverage on the highways is very minimal. AT&T has most of them covered in 3G, but not all. I still hit a huge chunk of EDGE on I-80 in Western PA. Hopefully AT&T steps up their game, but T-Mo has way less even now.

[brad15]

Their 3G coverage on the highways is very minimal. AT&T has most of them covered in 3G, but not all. I still hit a huge chunk of EDGE on I-80 in Western PA. Hopefully AT&T steps up their game, but T-Mo has way less even now.

who cares? edge is just fine for 99% of what i do when i would be driving anyway. it's not like i tether my phone and play with my laptop while im driving, as long as i can call/text/mms and use pandora or slacker i'm just fine, and EDGE accomplishes that just fine (actually GPRS can too with ~30sec to start the original buffer)

also, considering slacker has caching abilities then it's even less of a big deal

i'll keep my $50/mo that i'm saving with T-Mobile and deal with GPRS/EDGE the twice a year that i have too considering i do fly quite a bit anyway and any city/airport that i'd fly into has just fine HSPA+ coverage

I can always pay $50 for a one month datapass at Verizon or AT&T if i ever need too (although i've never needed it) and still save ~$50/mo for ten months out of the year.

Right now i'm paying ~$60 for T-Mobile, i have:

1,000 anytime (usually use ~500min/mo)
Unlimited M2M (have a ton of friends on T-Mobile here)
MyFaves (free addon from care)
Unlimited Messaging/5GB Data (usually use ~4gb/mo) for $24.99/mo
Free Nights/Weekends @ 9pm
15% Discount though work

for AT&T, we get the same 15%, so i'd be looking at ~111 for:

900 anytime with rollover
unlimited any mobile
unlimited messaging
5GB data ($10/gb thereafter)
Free nights/weekends @ 9pm

considering i never even come close to 1,000min with myFaves, then it makes complete sense to save anywhere from $500-$600/yr by staying with T-Mobile and just getting a prepaid sim for my unlocked hotspot if i'd ever need it (btw, the straight talk or h20 sim cards work very well for this i've found out playing around)

[river.guy]

I am quite happy to hear of the refarm. When 1900 3G hits my market (probably distant future), I will switch back to T-Mobile in a heartbeat!! Just wish they would post which places have the new 3G, instead of leaving us to figure it out for ourselves. I have an iPhone 4s, and my only acquaintance with T-Mob around here has a Galaxy S2. Not like I can just have him pop out his SIM so I can check once in a while.

[terryjohnson16]

How do you get to the network menu on the Samsung phones? I know there is a menu that you can get to to choose what bands it uses.

[ja5219]

*#*#197328640#*#*
Debug Screen -> Phone Control -> Network Control -> Band Selection.

This works on the Exhibit II

[terryjohnson16]

*#*#197328640#*#*
Debug Screen -> Phone Control -> Network Control -> Band Selection.

This works on the Exhibit II

Thanks. I just switched it to HSPA 1900 mode, and I have no service. So no 1900 3G in NYC yet. I put it back to WCDMA all. And service is back.

Are T-Mobile phones set to AWS-only, or does the phones just lock on to what is available in the area? Cause, I am wondering if I put the phone on AWS only, I won't know when/if the PCS 1900 is available in the area.