T-Mobile is expanding its 4G HSPA + based wireless network yet again. The wireless phone and data providers announced this week that 41 more US cities and metro areas now have access to its faster network. Last May the wireless carrier flipped the switch on its 4G service in 55 cities in the US. Today"s announcement brings the total to 96 cities and metro areas in the US that have access to the higher speeds which T-Mobile says reach up to 42 Mbps (in theory).
At the moment the only device T-Mobile sells that can take full advantage of the top speeds is the T-Mobile Rocket 3.0 USB laptop stick. The company said today that its customers have "seen average download speeds approaching 10Mbps with peak speeds of 27Mbps" when using the Rocket 3.0 USB laptop stick. There are a number of phones and tablets that can access the slower 4G (HSPA+ 21) that T-Mobile still uses.
The 41 new cities that now have access to the faster T-Mobile network include locations such as Akron, Ohio, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Charleston, S.C., Cleveland, Ohio; Sacramento, California., Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Texas, San Diego California and Waco, Texas.
While T-Mobile is expanding its faster wireless service, the company that wants to acquire T-Mobile, AT&T, has yet to turn on its own faster network which will be based on the LTE protocol. AT&T has said that it will turn the switch on the first cities in the US with the faster LTE network sometime this summer.