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T-Mobile is rolling out one of the biggest ever improvements to its 5G network right now

By Adrian Diaconescu

Published: Mar 06, 2024, 9:40 AM

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T-Mobile is rolling out one of the biggest ever improvements to its 5G network right now

Remember when T-Mobile used to announce major 5G developments, expansions, breakthroughs, and innovations practically once every few weeks a couple of years or so? While those days are (largely) gone for a pretty good reason, as Magenta's cutting-edge network has clearly reached a point of relative maturity far earlier than many industry experts probably expected, there's still a little room for improvement essentially across the nation.

That's all the "Un-carrier" needs to further widen the 5G speed and availability gap to its arch-rivals, which should happen "over the next few days" as a result of a bunch of spectrum bought at auction all the way back in 2022.

What took T-Mo so long?

In short, it's complicated. In long, it's really complicated, and to be perfectly honest, we don't fully understand what happened between the end of the FCC's Auction 108 held in August 2022 and today's triumphant T-Mobile announcement, especially behind closed doors.

For some political reason, the nation's second-largest wireless service provider (by subscriber numbers) was not initially given access to the 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses it spent more than $300 million on, having to resort to various legal actions and lobbying to ultimately get its money's worth of 5G airwaves.

Despite the competition's opposition, that clearly happened, and while nobody can give T-Mobile its lost time back, all's well when ends well. This happy ending to a decidedly unusual spectrum saga means that "tens of millions" of people should get "immediate" performance boosts on their phones, at least according to the mobile network operator that's already widely regarded as the US speed champion.

Believe it or not, those towering nationwide speed scores reported by research and analytics firms like Ookla, Rootmetrics, and Opensignal are all but guaranteed to go up in the next tests, and more importantly, real users out in the real world are likely to notice big upgrades in a matter of days.

Where is T-Mobile's 2.5 GHz spectrum being deployed?

That, our dear readers and friends, is by far the best part of this announcement. As incredible as it sounds, what T-Mobile paid a bargain price of $304 million for in 2022 covers not only every US state but "nearly every county" across the nation.

That's obviously not to say that everyone will gain access to new spectrum and get to enjoy higher 5G download speeds as a consequence everywhere all at once, but T-Mo says there's a "good chance you'll get a 5G boost where you travel, work or play" pretty much regardless of your place of residence.

Of course, it will help if you happen to frequently "travel, work or play" in a rural area, which is the main focus of this huge new Ultra Capacity 5G network expansion. It's even better if you live in a state like Louisiana, where the benefits of the latest spectrum deployments will be felt in no less than 92 percent of all counties, or Pennsylvania, where T-Mobile's additional 5G capacity is expected to improve the network experience of "more than" 1.7 million people, including half a million rural residents.

In total, Magenta has all the necessary designs in place to bring major performance improvements to almost 60 million customers over nearly 300,000 square miles nationwide "over the next few days", which are two mind-blowing numbers that clearly speak louder than all of the words contained in the company's press release and our own little article here.

And then there are an extra 20 million people or so who will get big 5G speed boosts of their own at a later point in time as T-Mobile needs to build new towers to accommodate the cutting-edge 2.5 GHz technology in many places. Now that's how a market leader and industry pioneer operates!

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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.