LTE-Advanced is so passé.
T-Mobile on Tuesday sought to one-up Verizon’s recent LTE-Advanced roll out with its launch of 4×4 Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) and 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM )for downloads.
According to T-Mobile, its new 4×4 MIMO technology is now available in 319 cities across the country. The Un-carrier said customers with the Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 edge will be able to take advantage of the technology first via a software update coming later this month, but noted more phones will also support it soon.
In a blog post detailing the launch, T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray said 4×4 MIMO will offer customers double the speed by increasing the number of data paths between a cell site and a customer’s device.
T-Mobile on Tuesday also announced the launch of 256 QAM for downloads and 64 QAM for uploads. Ray said the technologies are already live in half of the Un-carrier’s network and will be live on every T-Mobile cell site in the nation by the end of October.
Ray said the QAM technology will increase speeds by boosting the number of bits delivered per transmission. As with 4×4 MIMO, customers on the S7 and S7 edge will get access to the upgraded technology first via a software update in October. Support on more devices is “on the way,” Ray said.
T-Mobile’s announcement came with more than a few shots at both Verizon and Sprint, who have been touting their launches and experiments with two- and three-channel carrier aggregation. Verizon last week announced the launch of two- and three-channel carrier aggregation on its LTE-Advanced network while Sprint has been heralding its progression from two- to three-channel carrier aggregation in a series of trial announcements.
“While carriers like to announce every. single. device. they test in the lab on new technologies, the Un-carrier acts,” Ray wrote. “We put new technology to work for our customers in the field, not in press releases.”
While Sprint and Verizon have both boasted peak speeds of around 300 mbps with three-channel carrier aggregation, Ray said the combination of T-Mobile’s 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM technologies offers download speeds of up to 400 mbps.
Ray on Tuesday also said T-Mobile has expanded its coverage to nearly 312 million people or approximately 99.7 percent of those covered by Verizon.
Filed Under: Infrastructure
