T-Mobile users across the country may soon see service improvements. Ulf Ewaldsson, T-Mobile’s president of technology, told CNET on Wednesday that the airwaves will enhance service to nearly 60 million people and more than 80 million people “within days.” announced that it finally has access to additional mid-band frequencies. As you build additional towers, your population will increase overall.
The 2.5GHz spectrum, which is the core of much of T-Mobile’s faster 5G “ultracapacity” service, was purchased by the carrier in a 2022 government auction for $304 million. Regulatory hurdles surrounding the Federal Communications Commission’s auction Until now, jurisdictions have prevented carriers from accessing spectrum, but those issues appear to have finally been resolved.
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Ewaldsson said the carrier plans to push the software to existing towers in the coming days, adding capacity for about 60 million people. Achieving this 80 million number would require carriers to build additional cell towers, which would take time. No deadline has been given for when these new towers will be built.
“For all the towers we have that can transmit 2.5 (GHz), we’re just reprogramming them right now,” he said, adding that this means “we’re very close to achieving 60 (million).” That’s why it’s easy,” he added.
In a press release announcing the news, T-Mobile said it had acquired licenses for additional spectrum for this frequency in “more than 7,000” counties across the country, with “the majority of licenses covering rural areas.” It’s advertised. However, the company notes that it has obtained “licenses in nearly every county across the United States,” so performance should improve outside of the areas where the new spectrum will be deployed.
This uses the same 2.5 GHz frequency (also known as band n41) that T-Mobile already uses in much of the country, so users will have to upgrade their devices to see these improvements. No need to.
Ewaldsson and T-Mobile do not provide exact estimates of what kind of speeds users will be able to achieve with this additional capacity, as results will vary by market. Ewaldsson notes that this additional capacity should help the carrier roll out other services, such as extending his T-Mobile home internet service to more people.
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T-Mobile has previously said it aims to have 7 million to 8 million people subscribe to its home internet service by 2025. “From a technology perspective, from my perspective, this will help further increase home internet offerings,” Ewaldson said. Say.
The additional 2.5GHz spectrum is just the latest addition of spectrum to T-Mobile’s holdings, as T-Mobile separately acquired C-band midband spectrum in a separate FCC auction in 2021.
It also could end up keeping the low-band 800MHz spectrum it acquired as part of the Sprint merger. The spectrum was to be sold to Dish, but the satellite TV provider has had financial problems as it seeks to become the fourth wireless network, and recent SEC filings show that T. It became clear that there was no funding to purchase spectrum from the US. cell phone.
It is unclear when T-Mobile will utilize these additional holdings. “C-band is also an increase in capacity. We’re very confident in the capacity of our network. Or I’m very confident in it, which is why we’ve continued to delay the rollout of C-band.” says Ewaldson. “The plan is for the second half of this year. For example, right now, we don’t see a real need for this six months. And we’ll continue to evaluate when that will be.” [the] It’s the right time. ”
As for 800MHz, carriers are still waiting for “final confirmation” from Dish, after which they will decide whether to deploy it, sell it to another company or auction it, Ewaldson said.
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