All Things D reported earlier this morning that Neville Ray, CTO of T-Mobile, announced at a dinner event on Monday evening the carrier’s plans to upgrade their network to HSPA+ 4G service by the end of the year so that they can offer the iPhone to their customers.
T-Mobile also made the official announcement in a press release this morning…
NEW ORLEANS, May 07, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Today, T-Mobile USA, Inc. announced multi-year agreements with Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks to support T-Mobile’s $4 billion 4G network evolution plan, including network modernization and deployment of long term evolution (LTE) service in 2013(1).
As part of the agreements, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks will provide and install state of the art, Release 10 capable equipment at 37,000 cell sites across T-Mobile’s 4G network, increasing signal quality and enhancing performance beginning in 2012. T-Mobile also expects to be the first carrier in North America to broadly deploy antenna integrated radios, enabling accelerated deployment and reduced site loading.
Last week, T-Mobile secured the AWS spectrum licenses from AT&T which were agreed to as part of the breakup of the proposed merger between the two companies. This new spectrum, in addition to the refarming effort, enables the launch of LTE in AWS spectrum and up to 20 MHz of LTE in 75% of the top 25 markets.
“We’re making great progress on our four billion dollar 4G network transformation,” said Neville Ray, chief technology officer, T-Mobile USA. “With these partners on board and the AT&T AWS spectrum secured, we’re on track to enhance our 4G experience this year and deliver nationwide LTE in 2013.”
Although T-Mobile is largely focusing on upgrading to a LTE network, the company has recommitted some of it’s 1900 MHz spectrum for it’s HSPA+4G network, CNet reports. As a result current iPhone models are expected to be able to be used on the upgraded network. Currently customers who use unlocked iPhone’s on T-Mobile’s network are limited to 2G speeds.
