It never hurts to prepare for the future.
T-Mobile recently won an FCC wireless auction for a portion of the wireless airwave spectrum, thereby spending $8 billion to expand its network. The carrier acquired over 1,500 wireless licenses in the 600MHz range. Signals within the 600MHz can travel longer distance and are generally considered high quality—the kind of high quality that would put T-Mobile on par with AT&T and Verizon.
Right now, the 600MHz spectrum is used by television broadcasters, and it won’t clear until early 2020 or so. The company says some of its new spectrum will be usable though, by T-Mobile as well as its subsidiary MetroPCS.
As present, current smartphones aren’t capable of operating on 600 MHz frequencies, though this is expected to change. Qualcomm is presently working on chips capable of this function.
Another arrival in the 2020s will be the expansion of wireless networks to 5G speeds. This means that T-Mobile will catch up to the other carriers just as an entirely new network category will appear.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via The Mac Observer