Good visual aid to show how much T-Mobile gained with the 600Mhz auction

[LeoRex]

Legere was jacked up on Redbull, so his enthusiasm was expected... but I wanted to post a couple of graphics that I got from Spectrum Gateway

The colors on the map represent how much continuous spectrum is available for LTE downlink in AWS-1 or PCS band without carrier aggregation:
Black: 0 MHz
Yellow: 5 MHz
Green: 10 MHz
Red: 15 MHz (peak download speed of about 112 Mbps)
Magenta: 20 MHz (peak download speed of about 150 Mbps)
Together red and magenta colors show where T-Mobile can deploy Wideband LTE.

First.. their current network



Now, what they gained with the new 600Mhz spectrum rights



As with most things, more is better... And T-Mobile got big beefy chunks of spectrum (wider means higher capacity and better bandwidth). And this is just the rights to use the spectrum, not where they will have towers, etc... but it illustrates just how much their network will benefit from the auction win.

By the way, I don't think it is a coincidence that the areas that got the least amount of spectrum are big metro areas. This spectrum is recovered from UHF TV stations, and I think that there might be exclusion zones still in place (like they dealt with during the 700Mhz rollout). But metro areas weren't an issue as is... the big thing here is everywhere else.

Oh, and if you work on an oil platform in the Gulf.... you'll be able to binge watch Netflix now.

 

[anon(9898026)]

I know they have to build it but it's impressive how much low band spectrum they got.

 

[gipper69]

The bad news is that this will require new devices, even after the tower deployment. None of the current generation devices support these frequencies. So, while it is a sign of better things to come, it will cost you.

 

[Zulfigar]

Sadly, not even the Galaxy S8(+), but maybe the Note 8 will.

 

[LeoRex]

The bad news is that this will require new devices, even after the tower deployment. None of the current generation devices support these frequencies. So, while it is a sign of better things to come, it will cost you.

Well, like band 12, by the time it rolls out, you'll probably have a phone that supports it. The Fall crop of T-Mobile devices might have support.

 

[OhAlfie]

So NO current phones today can access this better coverage system?

 

[LeoRex]

So NO current phones today can access this better coverage system?

Correct... there's nothing on the market that supports it. But this isn't something you can just send down via an OTA.

 

[anon(10271019)]

definitely a game changer for sure. nice to see TMobile get that much low band