T-Mobile Rolls Out 4x4 MIMO for Faster LTE Speeds

[Scorch07]

T-Mobile leases towers from Verizon and AT&T. Following the collapse of the AT&T and T-Mobile merger, T-Mobile divested it's network real estate (antenna)s to CrownCastle, and AT&T sold their towers to CrownCastle also. Verizon sold their towers to American Tower.

In most situations (like 95% of the time) AT&T and Verizon provide connectivity and Fiber to the towers they own. So when T-Mobile pays a lease to a tower, it still relies on Verizon or AT&T landline service to connect the equipment to the network.
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Well, T-Mobile is at it again. Remember, they are a "Re-Carrier now, and if you've seen the past, ads, they look familiar. First, they are using the same "Re-Carrier" advertising strategy.

Here's how it works-- they'll advertise a new service and how it's better than a competitors, even when they haven't tested it; and remain ranked #4 (out of 4 companies) in coverage and service according to RootMetrics.

So here, you might get lucky and get 450MB speeds for a short time, but like clockwork, they'll start telling customers they need to upgrade. Two things happen.

Part 1- 1.) T-Mobile will also change the plan and how it's billed. (Look at Rate plans with "Unlimited" data; but then T-Mobile raised rates and Re-Advertised the terms of their service; changed how T-Mobile bills for video; and not Net-Neutrality Compliant with a plan called "Binge On".)

Part 2- Other people will upgrade and begin to use the service in your area. You won't get the advertised speed once one other person in your area upgrades. As an early adopter, take a picture of the speeds you had during that first week. This way, you can fondly look back at that speed test as you continue your 2-year contract term. Also you could post "SpeedTest" results online so T-Mobile they can get even more customers on the network.

Logically though... The engineering needs to get done. In order to get coverage and speed to the tower via landline fiber. In most parts of the US where T-Mobile leases space on Verizon's antenna structure, Verizon (or AT&T Landlines) has to bring fiber optic lines to the tower. So AT&T and Verizon will likely have the faster speed first. T-Mobile likes to advertise placing the cart before the horse, I guess.

Another problem T-Mobile has is the spectrum position and amount of airwaves. Verizon also has 800% more cellular airwaves, which travel "up to 4-times farther" than what T-Mobile advertises as LTE Extended Range service (Band 12). Having access to a larger amount of airwaves is important if you want coverage over wider distances and for more people (capacity). T-Mobile wants to increse their ad budget instead of providing service.

Either way, it's shady marketing T-Mobile uses. But it must be legal in the country Neville Ray is from. I believe he's still on a Green Card and not a US citizen and may not know about US's strict truth-in-advertising laws. That's probably why it's on a blog post. This is exactly what a "Re-Carrier" does.

It's cute how you posted that same scripted junk on Engadget. Oh and also a new user I see... interesting.

Anyway, we all know that RootMetrics study was junk. Here's the real-world deal - I used to have AT&T, and switched to T-Mobile personally about a year ago, and I have Verizon for work. So I feel pretty qualified to make a comparison. And TMO unequivocally blows the other two away for me. I have signal more often than family members with ATT, and the spots where TMO beats VZW and vice-versa are about even.

When it comes to speed, TMO always crushes the other two for me. No question. And the real world data from the likes of Ookla and OpenSignal backs that up.

Finally, when it comes to service, ATT was always ok. Not great, but not terrible. Verizon is absolutely awful! I have to deal with them constantly for sticking crap charges on our bill and all kinds of things like that. And half the time they make it worse rather than fixing it. No wonder they got in trouble for overcharging the DOD...

T-Mobile, once again, has always been fantastic with customer support.

All that to say, I wouldn't necessarily be mad if I had to use ATT for some reason. I never had any actual problems with them. T-Mobile is definitely my personal preference right now, both in terms of my plan (though I'm not the biggest fan of the new ONE thing), and in terms of service. And I would NEVER voluntarily switch to Verizon unless they really change their tune.

All that said, I know it's all different in different regions and what not. That's just my personal experience based on the last year or so. But I have been kind of all over the country in that period, and even enjoyed the free Canadian and European roaming (another bonus that blows Verizon in particular out of the water).

Funny how Sprint never even seems to be in these conversations

 

[unplugme71]

Looks like ubiquiti photo

 

[5105973]

I had T-mobile service on my iPad for a while. I experienced great speed, bad coverage, and worse customer service. I hear their customer service has gotten better, but I can't consider switching back until they get better coverage, specifically in rural areas. I travel the hills a lot for work and it's either Verizon or AT&T most of the time out there.

I'm not in any hills. I could barely get any signal on my iPad most places I took my iPad to. Awful. But I love how they shook up the industry and forced the other carriers to try to do better by their customers.

 

[tennisproha]

Domestic roaming generally costs nothing in the US on all the carriers. You'll just have a very slow speed/small data bucket for roaming on that carrier specifically. Generally. Some smaller carriers have agreements in place where their network can be used at full speed just like normal. Data-bucket-wise as well.

Also, T-Mobile has tons of countries included in "Simple Global", a feature included at no extra charge on all current plans. It allows you to roam in tons of countries, and have unlimited texting, unlimited 128kbps data (now 256kbps on the T-Mobile ONE Plus plan) and calls at only $.20/min. Also on T-Mobile you can roam in Canada and Mexico totally free, it simply treats you as if you're still in the US. Full data speeds, unlimited texts, calls, etc. Data pulls from your regular data bucket like usual.

I do know about Simple Global roaming and have used it before. I didn't know about domestic roaming though. Its kinda funny. my association of domestic roaming is with landlines growing up so I always associate that with being able to call/make calls outside your locale, not using another network. But I did not know that. I wonder how good T-Mobile roaming on Att is...

Thanks.

 

[Makosuke]

For those complaining about T-Mobile's poor rural coverage (compared to Verizon, anyway), I certainly agree, but even in rural areas I think it depends a lot on what part of the country. Last time I drove through the plains I never had coverage unless I was near a decent-sized town, but here in the rural northwest my coverage is only a little worse than Verizon, and I was actually surprised recently when someone with a Verizon phone had worse coverage than I did at a worksite.

This news of widespread upgrades made me check the speed where I live, and there is a huge improvement since the last time I looked.

It obviously isn't 4x4 MIMO, but they sure upgraded something. Until some time recently, my rural town had a bad T-Mobile tower or something. Both adjacent towns (one smaller, one bigger) routinely registered something like 40Mbit speeds, while at home I never even saw 10, and it was often much slower--painfully so.

Now, I've got a solid 50Mbit down and 24Mbit up, which is pretty darned decent.

I'm still on a 6, but I'm hoping that with a 7 I'll be able to take advantage of their new spectrum and maybe improve my fringe-area coverage a little. We shall see soon enough.

 

[OriginalStix]

I had T-mobile service on my iPad for a while. I experienced great speed, bad coverage, and worse customer service. I hear their customer service has gotten better, but I can't consider switching back until they get better coverage, specifically in rural areas. I travel the hills a lot for work and it's either Verizon or AT&T most of the time out there.

I've had tmobile since the iphone 6 launch and have noticed a huge improvement over the past 2 years. I drive to Chicago and back every month or so from Detroit. Once you're about 45 minutes outside of either city, its a whole lot of nothing, which was brutal for much of 2014 and 2015, Dropping calls left and right and intermittent EDGE signal was standard.

Second half of 2015 started dropping calls less and less and was able to stream music on LTE or 4/5 bars of 4g nearly the entire ride, outside of a 2-3 mile stretch between hills. For the past 6 months its been consistent LTE the whole ride.

You can attribute some of that to upgrading to the 6s, with the supported band 11 antenna, but for the most part T mobile has been backing up their claims to improve coverage fwiw.

 

[Return Zero]

I'm not in any hills. I could barely get any signal on my iPad most places I took my iPad to. Awful. But I love how they shook up the industry and forced the other carriers to try to do better by their customers.

I agree. I love that there is at least one company breaking the mold. Telecom/ISP giants consistently get away with thievery.

Also, I lol'ed so hard at your username XD
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I've had tmobile since the iphone 6 launch and have noticed a huge improvement over the past 2 years. I drive to Chicago and back every month or so from Detroit. Once you're about 45 minutes outside of either city, its a whole lot of nothing, which was brutal for much of 2014 and 2015, Dropping calls left and right and intermittent EDGE signal was standard.

Second half of 2015 started dropping calls less and less and was able to stream music on LTE or 4/5 bars of 4g nearly the entire ride, outside of a 2-3 mile stretch between hills. For the past 6 months its been consistent LTE the whole ride.

You can attribute some of that to upgrading to the 6s, with the supported band 11 antenna, but for the most part T mobile has been backing up their claims to improve coverage fwiw.

That is encouraging to hear. I feel no loyalty towards Verizon, and if I start to hear reports like yours close to where I live, I will probably give T-Mo another shot.

 

[S.B.G]

I think T-Mobile is being liberal with the word "covered".

I quite agree with you, but then again its just marketing plain and simple to give the impression that they're really good and better than their competition.

 

[AlphaGuitarist]

Gimmicks aside, T-Mobile is lacking what really counts - coverage. If their service works for some people, that's all fine and dandy. However, driving about 45 minutes north of the biggest city in the US and not getting any service (none at all - no bars, not even EDGE or 2G), despite the fact that T-Mobile's coverage map shows good LTE coverage, is unacceptable in this day and age. To me, consistent coverage everywhere I need it is more important than super-fast data in select areas.

 

[imlynxy]

I affraid no MIMO support with new iphone 7. Apple confirmed speeds upto 450, while Qualcomm X12 max speed is 600.

 

[rjohnstone]

According to T-Mobile, initially only the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are going to be able to use it.
They have to push a software update to the phones (some time this month), to enable it.
Other devices will be added later.

I do suspect the iPhone 7 might actually support it, but we won't know for sure until either a teardown is done to DI the chip, or Apple announces it officially.


https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-and-blogs/lte-advanced.htm

This new advanced technology is available NOW in 319 cities. Customers with the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge will be able to use this new technology with a software update later this month, and more phones will support it soon.

 

[britboyj]

What iPhone are you currently using? That 5s still? The 5s doesn't support band 12, which is T-Mobile's "far reaching" LTE band that also penetrates buildings much better. It operates within similar frequencies as Verizon and AT&T's band 13 and 17 respectively that are known for their great coverage and in building reception.

The only Apple devices that support band 12 are the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, and iPad Pro 9.7.

Verizon has VoLTE now... So you can talk on LTE with improved voice quality and use LTE at the same time for data. This is an iPhone 6 and newer feature... So once again if you're using a 5s you're missing out due to old hardware.

Holy crap, are you Lowell McAdam himself? This is incredibly defensive.

I have a 6 and just ordered a 7. lack of VoLTE and Verizon's terrible customer service about upgrading TO a 6 back in 2014 is what caused me to switch at the time. They'll never get me back. The comments on devices for speed were simply for a frame of reference at that moment in time, and T-Mobile has only improved since.

 

[XTheLancerX]

Holy crap, are you Lowell McAdam himself? This is incredibly defensive.

I have a 6 and just ordered a 7. lack of VoLTE and Verizon's terrible customer service about upgrading TO a 6 back in 2014 is what caused me to switch at the time. They'll never get me back. The comments on devices for speed were simply for a frame of reference at that moment in time, and T-Mobile has only improved since.

lol no!! was I coming across as defensive of Verizon? That's not what I was intending at all. That post did have a generally condescending "tone" to it, so I apologize.

It's funny you say that though. I'm actually accused of being a T-Mobile fanboy by my friends even though I'm not even a T-Mobile customer due to coverage.. Ironic wouldn't you say?

 

[britboyj]

lol no!! was I coming across as defensive of Verizon? That's not what I was intending at all. That post did have a generally condescending "tone" to it, so I apologize.

It's funny you say that though. I'm actually accused of being a T-Mobile fanboy by my friends even though I'm not even a T-Mobile customer due to coverage.. Ironic wouldn't you say?

No worries. Such is the issue with communicating on the Internet.

I can say that if I lived in California, I'd definitely be on someone other than T-Mobile. It's serviceable enough for travel, but I wouldn't pay what I pay in Texas.