Tag: T-Mobile

How are Cellular Carriers Handling the Hurricane?

As Hurricane Ian continues to wreak havoc on our East coast, many people will find themselves without power or cellular service. However, AT&T just made an announcement yesterday that they are taking new measures to ensure customers of other carriers can stay connected. Thankfully, Verizon and T-Mobile have announced similar efforts. 

During and after the storm, AT&T will have roaming available to all locations affected by the hurricane. In a statement they said the following:

“We are working to help the people affected by Hurricane Ian in Florida. To assist in the recovery, we’re now welcoming other carriers’ customers to roam on our networks so they can connect, even if their carrier’s service isn’t available after the storm. Once this roaming begins, customers will automatically be connected to our network.”

Verizon’s announcement also came yesterday. They are currently working on refueling generators at its cell sites to ensure they stay running. Their engineers also started to deploy mobile assets (temporary mobile network equipment), prioritizing core public safety and government EOCs including police departments, fire departments, search and rescue teams. In affected areas, customers will have unlimited calling, texting, and data until October 4, 2022.

T-Mobile made a similar announcement and will be providing unlimited connections to customers in affected areas until October 3. They explained that their teams are on the ground checking equipment where it’s safe to do so. Teams are also working in the hardest hit areas to restore service. Per their announcement:

“Additional emergency equipment and teams have been staged in Alabama, Georgia and parts of Florida and are deploying into impacted areas where it is safe to do so. This includes mobile network command centers, generators and fuel trucks, along with mobile network equipment such as COLTs and SatCOLTs (Cells on Light Trucks and Satellite Cells on Light Trucks) and COWs (Cells on Wheels).”

We wish all of those in Florida a quick and safe recovery and hope that our friends along the rest of the east coast stay safe as well.

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How T-Mobile Earned Top Honors with OpenSignal

BELLEVUE, Wash. (T-Mobile Newsroom — Sept. 20, 2022) — Before going interstellar, T-Mobile takes 5G leadership global. In a new global report, leading research firm Opensignal today confirmed that T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) customers get a 5G signal more often and in more places than anyone else on the planet. That’s right. T-Mobile has the world’s best 5G Availability and 5G Reach … and for the second year in a row was the ONLY U.S. operator to win a 5G Global award!

“The latest awards from Opensignal further prove that our early bets in 5G are paying off for our customers with the biggest, fastest and most reliable 5G in America … and also the best 5G reach and availability anywhere on the planet,” said Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile. “We’re out in front of the competition, and we’re not looking back.”

This report joins a plethora of others from third-party research firms like Ookla and umlaut, further cementing T-Mobile’s status as the most-awarded 5G network in the nation. In fact, the Un-carrier is the returning champ for best global 5G Availability based on results from Opensignal’s 2021 Global Awards.

For Carrier customers who want to experience a world leader, the Un-carrier’s recently-launched Network Pass gives them free 5G data on T-Mobile’s network for three months using their current compatible phone, so they can see for themselves how T-Mobile performs compared to their current provider.

T-Mobile is the leader in 5G with the country’s largest, fastest and most reliable 5G network. The Un-carrier’s Extended Range 5G covers nearly everyone in the country – 320 million people across 1.8 million square miles. 235 million people nationwide are covered with super-fast Ultra Capacity 5G, and T-Mobile expects to cover 260 million in 2022 and 300 million next year.

For more information on T-Mobile’s network, visit T-Mobile.com/coverage. 

Follow T-Mobile’s Official Twitter Newsroom @TMobileNews to stay up to date with the latest company news.

Opensignal Awards – 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2022, based on independent analysis of mobile measurements recorded during the period January 1 – June 29, 2022 © 2022 Opensignal Limited.

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What Frequency did T-Mobile Win Licenses For?

WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) – T-Mobile (TMUS.O) won the bulk of licenses awarded in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 2.5 GHz band auction, successfully bidding $304.3 million, the agency said Thursday.

Most of the auctioned spectrum is located in rural areas and will support wireless services in rural communities, the FCC said. In total, the auction raised gross proceeds of $427 million. T-Mobile won 7,156 of the 8,017 county-based licenses offered for auction.

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When Will There Be More 5G Coverage?

More announcements of 5G expansions are coming in from carriers this week. We already heard about Verizon and their C-Band and now news is coming from AT&T about their mid-band spectrum. T-Mobile is even adding more coverage in California for its 5G Home Internet services.  

AT&T 5G is now covering 70 million people. In January they said they planned to cover 200 million people with its various mid-band spectrum positions by the end of 2023.

For T-Mobile, they’re covering over six million homes throughout the state of California with their recent expansion. The reason for this concentration in California is because so many homes there are still without access to reliable broadband service. 

“Broadband customers are stuck – millions of families across the country still have little to no choice when it comes to home internet. For decades, customers have been stuck with terrible customer service, price hikes and surprise fees from their internet providers,” said Mike Katz, Chief Marketing Officer at T-Mobile. “Today, we’re taking another step to change that, increasing access to T-Mobile Home Internet throughout California. With the Un-carrier, residents across the Golden State can get reliable, affordable home broadband without all the traditional ISP BS. That’s why more than a million customers nationwide have already switched to T-Mobile Home Internet.”

T-Mobile says that more than 40 million households are eligible for 5G Home Internet. Availability is based on network capacity, which is increasing all the time. Check if T-Mobile Home Internet is available for your home at https://www.t-mobile.com/isp

AT&T said it is six months ahead of schedule on mid-band 5G deployment. Now they expect to cover nearly 100 million people by the end of the year with this spectrum. 

On the broadband front, AT&T Fiber added 316,000 subscribers. The carrier added 289,000 subscribers last quarter and touts that this is the 10th straight quarter adding more than 200,000 net subscribers. As with its efforts on 5G, the carrier has been working to improve its fiber network and has begun upgrading its network to offer multigigabit connections. 

All carriers seem hopeful that their expansions will hang on to existing customers and pull in more from their competitors. Be sure to compare data plans and fine print before you commit to anything! With recent tests done by third parties like OpenSignal, T-Mobile is still at the forefront. However, only time will tell who will come out on top by the end of the year.

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What Frequency Bands Does 5G Use?

If you’re in the market for a 5G cellular modem or router, you may want to consider its supported frequency bands. There are three types of 5G. Sub-6 (also called FR1) refers to low band frequencies below 6GHz, and mmWave (also called FR2) refers to frequencies over 24GHz. You also have mid band, or the C-band, which covers 4GHz to 8GHz. However, carriers are more focused on the range of 3.7 to 4.2GHz.

When 5G was initially rolled out, it used Sub-6 5G that stayed mainly below the 2GHz range. These frequencies were already used by 4G/LTE and even older 3G networks, so carriers had the necessary licenses to use them. This made it quick and easy for AT&T and T-Mobile to roll out 5G on top of their existing networks.

To this day, the most widely available 5G service in the U.S. is running on low band frequencies. Not only because it was the first service available, but because it covers the most distance. The downside is that in a lot of cases, the connection is only as good as LTE. 

C-band is the next best for 5G. While the distance it covers is not as much as Sub-6, it does offer a better 5G experience. In comparison, mmWave runs off the higher frequencies so it does not travel as far. This however, is the truest version of 5G with its significantly faster speeds, lower latency, and high reliability. 

Here’s a breakdown of the bands to look out for in the device specifications:

Sub-6/ 5G NR: n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n12, n20, n25, n28, n38, n40, n41, n46, n48, n66, n71, n77, n78, n79, n83

C-band: n77, n78, n79

mmWave: n257, n258, n259, n260, n261

Due to its availability, a majority of the 5G products we carry will only support Sub-6/ NR (New Radio) bands. There are a handful that will also support all C-band frequencies. To check those out, see below.

Should you be lucky enough to have mmWave coverage in your location, stay tuned for the Cradlepoint W4005. 

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What is the Current 5G Experience in the U.S?

Over the course of 3 months (Mar 16 – Jun 13, 2022), OpenSignal gathered 5G data points from each of the major U.S. cellular carriers – Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. This data was put into a report they call the 5G Experience Report, and it was just released. Big surprise…it shows T-Mobile as the winner in most categories. Check out the overall results below.

Taking a closer look, each category was analyzed at the national and regional levels. T-Mobile won with Download speeds over 98Mbps faster than Verizon and AT&T. Overall, the total was 171Mbps. This is T-Mobile’s sixth win in a row. The Upload speed tests were a bit closer, with only a 3Mbps difference between T-Mobile and Verizon. T-Mobile’s total was 17.8Mbps, and again, this was their sixth time in a row to win this category. Verizon and AT&T customers may still want to be hopeful though. They are the only two carriers that are using C-Band deployments. As these deployments increase, we suspect these reports may change. Still, T-Mobile has quite a lead.

Not only do T-Mobile customers receive the best overall speeds, but they can also access them in more places than other carriers’ networks. OpenSignal confirms this by awarding T-Mobile with the best 5G Reach. The report also confirms that T-Mobile has the best 5G Availability. It shows that T-Mobile customers were connected to 5G 2 times more often than AT&T customers, and over 3 times more often than Verizon customers.

With regards to testing 5G Games experience and Voice App experience, the point scale was 0 to 100. This is where Verizon won out against the others, but all were within a small margin. 

According to OpenSignal, “a good Games experience means that the gameplay experience was generally controllable and users received immediate feedback between their actions and the outcomes in the game. Most users did not experience a delay between their actions and the game.”

You may also be wondering what qualifies a good 5G Voice App Experience too. These tests “quantify the experience of Opensignal users when using over-the-top voice apps — such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — on an operator’s 5G network. It uses a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality.”

Want to know more about OpenSignal’s metrics and what they mean? Check out their article here.

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Why is T-Mobile Shutting Down LTE and 3G Networks?

As of a few days ago (June 30th), Sprint’s LTE network was finally retired by its new owner, T-Mobile. Sprint’s 3G CDMA network was shut down earlier this year, so this is just the next part of their Network Evolution process. Along with this retirement comes the shut down of T-Mobile’s own 3G UMTS network (July 1st). 

While it may come as a surprise to some, T-Mobile has actually kept Sprint’s networks in play since they officially took over in April 2020. Now that the 5G rollout is in full force, they need to repurpose these old networks for 5G spectrum.

If you happen to still be using a phone running on Sprint LTE or T-Mobile’s 3G, it’s likely you’ve already encountered problems with your service. No worries, T-Mobile will help you to get a 5G phone. The company says customers were informed with more than enough time to make the switch. Customers were also notified of a free offer on a replacement 5G device. 

On the note of retirement, T-Mobile’s 2G GSM network is still operational. The company plans to retire it, but does not have a set date at this time.

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Why is T-Mobile Testing Standalone 5G?

T-Mobile always seems to be touting that they have the best nationwide 5G network. The team at PCMag just confirmed that in a recent test. Now, they’ve taken to the streets again since T-Mobile just took another major step in expanding their network. Starting in New York, T-Mobile has installed 100MHz of standalone 5G, which is unencumbered by legacy 4G systems.

Why is this important exactly? Even at this point in the 5G rollout, most 5G systems are still running off 4G networks. This might be why you sometimes see more bandwidth from your LTE devices in comparison to your 5G ones. It’s also why you haven’t seen consistently lower latency and quality of service through network slicing yet. 

The sooner we can move 5G off the 4G system completely, the sooner we’ll start to see the new applications 5G has been promising. Things like augmented or virtual reality. Standalone 5G is going to be necessary for these technologies to work. 

While using standalone 5G is not something new for T-Mobile, they’ve only just started using Band n41. Prior to this, they had leveraged the longer-range, but lower capacity of Band n71. By utilizing the fast standalone n41, T-Mobile can have flexibility, capacity, and speed all together. 

In their tests, PCMag saw standalone n41 on several sites across central Syracuse, from the university campus to nearby downtown blocks. On the map below, the light blue color is the standalone 5G; the rest are mixes of 5G and 4G. Surprisingly, performance was similar to what you get from T-Mobile’s “5G UC” elsewhere. They received 310-382Mbps down, 52Mbps up, and 27-34ms latency. 

It turns out the PCMag team randomly found what T-Mobile called a “live engineering test site,” there in Syracuse. They discovered that in addition to testing standalone band n41, they were also testing standalone band n25. They’re even working on combining n25 and n41 using carrier aggregation.

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Who Has the Best Mobile Network?

T-Mobile does it for the second year in a row – they’ve beat out Verizon and AT&T in recent tests performed by the PCMag team. They’ve been running these “Fastest Mobile Network” tests for the past 12 years and with this year came some changes. They opted for electric vehicles for the more than 10,000 mile drive across the country. They used new software that tracks dropped calls and provides a better measure of reliability. Also, while previous years were in search of America’s fastest mobile network, they are now on the search for the best network. 

Using the Samsung Galaxy S22+ phone, the team stopped in 30 cities and six rural regions where they compared performance between AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Of these 30 cities, T-Mobile won in 18, Verizon won in eight and AT&T won in four. According to the team, “We use people, not square miles, to determine our scores. Rural areas comprise 16% of our score, similar to the 14-20% of the US population classified as rural.”

The reason for using the Samsung Galaxy over other 5G phones? PCMag said, “We’re using the Samsung Galaxy S22+ because it has shown the best network performance in our tests. With its Qualcomm X65 modem, the S22+ can hold onto weak signals longer than phones from previous years, and it supports all the new 5G bands carriers are implementing, including the frequencies AT&T is launching later this year.”

Due to the new software used this time around, the results aren’t directly comparable to those from previous years. For example, both T-Mobile and Verizon see dramatically increased nationwide speeds this year as they expand their mid-band 5G networks. However, as AT&T’s speeds decline, it has added very little capacity while data demands grew.

Looking closer at those speed results, T-Mobile also won here, specifically in upload and download speeds. The carrier was the fastest in 19 cities out of 30, compared to Verizon with nine and AT&T with two. PCMag also reported that T-Mobile is performing better in rural areas, but explained that it still has more rural dead zones in the Northeast than Verizon and AT&T do.

So how exactly is it that T-Mobile was capable of these wins? Their mid-band 5G network. This is what the carrier built from Sprint’s network after acquiring the company for $26 billion in 2020. They’ve also begun using carrier aggregation within the mid-band network to achieve faster speeds. 

For Verizon and AT&T, they are still working on closing the gap by utilizing mid-band spectrum they obtained in a recent FCC auction. Verizon has already gotten started with its 5G network, but AT&T has been waiting for the equipment required to build it out. AT&T hopes to have more 5G network service up and running by next year.

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How T-Mobile is “Boosting” 5G Mid-Band Speeds

T-Mobile announced another 5G milestone on Tuesday. They are now combining three channels of mid-band spectrum on their 5G network. In tests the company achieved network speeds of 3Gbps. While they weren’t specific, T-Mobile said this technology will become available to customers “later this year.”

When we look at what’s possible with 3Gbps (or 3,000Mbps), it’s comparable to the speeds of mmWave. This is the high-band 5G, which has a limited range, but allows you to download a movie in seconds. Mid-band 5G speeds normally max out around 200Mbps. However, T-Mobile is making some adjustments within the network to boost those speeds significantly.

Technically speaking, T-Mobile is using carrier aggregation to combine different sections of spectrum. Carrier aggregation, as you may be used to it, is how LTE Advanced and 5G modems combine frequency bands to achieve more bandwidth speed. So, it has nothing to do with combining multiple “carriers” as T-Mobile is using only their owned spectrum. 

This also is not something new for the company, or the 5G world. T-Mobile is already using this technology to combine two 2.5GHz 5G channels on some parts of its network. This most recent test increased speeds by adding a third channel.

Verizon had also used the technology to demonstrate speeds of 4.2Gbps on its 5G network back in 2020. The difference, from T-Mobile’s point of view, is that they are the first to use three-carrier aggregation on a live, standalone 5G network with a commercially available device: the Samsung Galaxy S22. That being said, those with a Galaxy S22 on T-Mobile’s network will be “among the first” to have access to this faster type of 5G.

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