T-Mobile has new coverage in rural regions thanks to its prolonged-range, 600MHz LTE network. The carrier won’t offer a map showing where you want a Band seventy-one cellphone, so we made one for you.
According to our one-of-a-kind crowdsourced insurance map, T-Mobile’s low-band LTE network has extended the service’s reach throughout the northern and central US. The 600MHz or “band seventy-one” network, which has best been stayed given that August 2017, now covers 340 rural cities and cities T-Mobile by no means blanketed earlier than, consistent with the provider.
T-Mobile won its nationwide Band 71 licenses in a 2017 public sale, but it hasn’t been able to roll out all of them. The spectrum used to be TV channels 38-51, and while TV stations have been transferring their alerts to decreased channels, a few still have until mid-2020 to make the switch.
We worked with Ookla Speedtest to determine all the ZIP codes given in April 2018, when T-Mobile customers with Android phones ran velocity checks on the low-band community. While T-Mobile could no longer provide us with its respectable 600MHz map, we have been able to consult with the carrier to remove fake positives from our map.
Our ensuing map does not show all of T-Mobile’s low-band network—it most effectively shows where we were able to find the exams. Many areas of the United States are also covered by T-Mobile’s 700MHz Band 12 network, which we aren’t specializing in here. For a full-scale T-Mobile insurance map, take a look at the carrier’s website.
The community additionally covers a whole lot of Puerto Rico.
Compare that 600MHz map to T-Mobile’s full, present-day LTE insurance map, which the carrier supplied us, and you can see below:
As you can see, T-Mobile has made excellent strides in the northern part of the US. If you live in southern Maine, northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Missouri, Kansas, southern Illinois, or New Mexico, you’ll have a good deal better T-Mobile insurance now than 12 months ago.
“When I needed to get my tires modified in Wenatchee (Washington), I changed into capable of tether my pc and feature speeds of 20-25Mbps easily in places in which I couldn’t get voice coverage before,” stated Mark McDiarmid, T-Mobile’s SVP of Radio Network Engineering & Technology Development.
T-Mobile stated that the community now covers forty-three states and Puerto Rico. However, while the business enterprise now owns a 600MHz spectrum protecting the whole US, it hasn’t covered the state. Still, because it’s been awaiting TV stations currently occupying their airwaves to “clean” the spectrum, a method this is persevering with. The company stated that T-Mobile expects to clean areas overlaying 272 million human beings by the quiet of this year.
However, many existing subscribers are not getting that insurance because their telephones aren’t Band seventy-one-compatible. Currently, 29 devices support 600MHz, along with each high-quit phone, like the Samsung Galaxy S9, Apple iPhone XS, and OnePlus 6T, and occasional-cease devices, like the T-Mobile Revvl 2 and Motorola E5 Plus. But all 600MHz telephones were launched after August 2017, which means that if you’re wearing an older smartphone, you may not be able to see or hear this community.
Rural wireless coverage has been a hot topic recently because T-Mobile is pledging that it will cover rural areas even better if allowed to merge with Sprint. The Vermont Department of Public Service additionally conducted unparalleled coverage pressure to show terrible mobile coverage on all of the networks in more rural parts of Vermont.
According to the Vermont state drive check, the carrier’s insurance—especially in west-imperative Vermont—is weaker than Verizon’s or AT&T’s. However, in northwest Vermont, close to St. Albans, where T-Mobile now has 600MHz, the pressure test showed that T-Mobile insurance is much stronger. According to Spectrum Gateway, the TV stations conserving 600MHz spectrum in Vermont are scheduled to transport out in their frequencies by March 3 and July 3, 2020.
What This Means for 5G
T-Mobile can use the identical 600MHz spectrum to set up its “national” 5G community, but you can not use this map to predict where T-Mobile will deploy 5G. That’s because T-Mobile is splitting its 600MHz allocation between 4G and 5G, depending on what other frequencies the provider has in play and how many 5G handsets are to be had.
Remember, T-Mobile has national licenses for 600MHz, but it hasn’t hooked it up anywhere for various reasons. In a few places, the TV stations have not cleared out. In others, the service may think it has enough 4G spectrum between 700MHz, 1700MHz, and 1900MHz and so can be preserving its complete 600MHz allocation for 5G.
In existing 600MHz LTE zones, T-Mobile will probably use a fab characteristic of the Qualcomm X55 modem to dynamically blend 4G and 5G within the same spectrum. On 600MHz, 5G may be 25-50 percent faster than 4G, T-Mobile exec Karri Kuoppamaki said last year. The provider will switch from 600MHz to 5G as more gadgets become available and more visitors move to the 5G network.
In any case, T-Mobile will keep a few 600MHz for 4G in regions in which it did not have insurance before, which means that if you do not have a 600MHz-successful telephone and you’re considering T-Mobile, you must get one right now.
