4g

AT&T adds six LTE markets, unveils plan for 77 more

Six more AT&T markets have access to its 4G LTE network, bringing its total to 182, the carrier said today.

Meanwhile, seven existing AT&T markets have snagged expanded LTE coverage. The company also unveiled plans to bring the super-fast wireless connection to 77 additional markets by the end of summer.

AT&T is racing to catch up to market leader Verizon Wireless, which offers LTE in nearly 500 markets and plans to wrap up its deployment by the middle of the year. With the increasing consumer awareness over 4G LTE and the need for a … Read more

U.K. carrier to push download speeds to 80Mbps in 10 cities

U.K. carrier EE is planning to double the download speeds for its 4G LTE customers in 10 cities as it continues its nationwide rollout of the high-speed data service.

The company, which operates under the brands EE, Orange, and T-Mobile in the U.K., said it will double the speeds in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Sheffield to offer top download speeds of up to 80Mbps.

Overall, the network aims to deliver an average download speed of 20Mbps in the 10 chosen cities before summer's end of. The speed doubling exercise will run … Read more

AT&T's 4G LTE hits 175 markets

LTE coverage bragging rights are usually a numbers game, and with the rollout of fast 4G in 14 new markets, AT&T has brought its total numbers up to 175.

Alphabetically, the new markets are:

Beaumont, Texas Binghamton, N.Y. Carbondale-Marion, Ill. Fort Pierce, Fla. Fort Smith, Ark. Fresno, Calif. Houma, La. Jefferson City, Mo. Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla. Las Cruces, N.M. Montgomery, Ala. Mount Vernon, Wash. Palm Coast, Fla. Temple-Killeen, Texas

Verizon, meanwhile, covers 486 markets with 4G LTE.

In terms of absolute population coverage, AT&T expects to supply fast 4G to 250 million people by … Read more

T-Mobile said to provide LTE on unlocked iPhones on April 5

Unlocked iPhone 5 owners on T-Mobile's network might be able to update their devices to LTE a bit earlier than expected. According to TmoNews, the carrier is said to be sending out an update on April 5 that will enable LTE, Visual Voicemail, and more.

"The T-Mobile Carrier Update is a minor iOS software update that enables official iPhone support by T-Mobile," a notice sent to TmoNews says. "When installed, the software update enables a handful of capabilities like Visual Voicemail, MMS Settings, and Network/Device optimizations that customers do not have access to today. On … Read more

T-Mobile to Lumia 810 users: No LTE for you

Nokia Lumia 810 owners hoping for an update to 4G LTE are out of luck.

The Lumia 810's hardware can support both HSPA+ and LTE; however, T-Mobile has confirmed that an update to LTE isn't going to happen -- at least not at this point, according to a statement sent to CNET today:

While the Nokia Lumia 810 features a chipset, which provides the hardware capability to support both HSPA+42 and LTE, the device will not automatically access our LTE network and, at this time, it will not receive an update to do so.

T-Mobile is committed … Read more

How T-Mobile is priming a stronger LTE network with MetroPCS

T-Mobile's salty, spirited launch of its better-late-than-never LTE network and new contract-free ethos may have felt like a sudden surge come from nowhere, but in fact, it was a well-calculated and slowly calibrated, years-long effort to save an ailing network.

Truth is, the fiery, passionate T-Mobile we saw during its "Uncarrier" event this week wouldn't have been possible without some failures and careful planning. T-Mobile's prognosis is also buoyed by an imminent clinch success: the federally approved purchase of prepaid carrier MetroPCS (the still hasn't been fully approved.)

Out of the spectrum crisis

T-Mobile … Read more

Bringing phones to T-Mobile's LTE network: The devil's in the details

Today, T-Mobile hyped how much easier bringing phones to its new network will be. As it turns out, however, it isn't as simple as you'd think.

Here's the deal. T-Mobile is in the middle of three major wireless transitions. Besides ripping up mandatory two-year contracts, the carrier is building a new 4G LTE network. If that wasn't enough, T-Mobile also is migrating its older 3.5G data service from the AWS band (1700/2100) where it currently lives over to the 1,900MHz GSM band.

But that's not all. T-Mobile is using that freed-up AWS … Read more

Testing T-Mobile's 4G LTE

T-Mobile just took a bold, new step by shredding the contracts for its plans plus launching its new 4G LTE data network. But what kind of speeds can you really expect to see on the carrier's hot, new devices? Judging from what I observed at T-Mobile's splashy press event in New York, apparently quite a bit. … Read more

T-Mobile announces Sonic 2.0 4G LTE mobile hot spot

In addition to unveiling its contract-free data plan, T-Mobile announced a number of devices that will be available on its 4G LTE network, including the Sonic 2.0 mobile hotspot.

Available now for $149.99, the Sonic 2.0 is the carrier's first LTE hot spot and it can connect up to eight devices.

The device is manufactured by ZTE and features a 1.77-inch color screen (which displays information such as signal strength, battery level, and number of connected devices), a microSD card slot that is expandable up to 32GB, and it works with both Windows 8 and … Read more

T-Mobile's 'Uncarrier' event: Join us at 8 a.m. PT today (live blog)

T-Mobile USA is expected to spill the details on how it will shake up the wireless industry, and you can get all the live updates right here.

The carrier is slated to hold a press conference at 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ET today in New York. CNET's Brian Bennett, Sarah Tew, and I will be bringing you all the all the latest news, commentary, and photos starting about 15 minutes before the event.

You can tune into the live blog here:

Join CNET starting at 7:45 a.m. PT/10:45 a.m. ET for live coverage of T-Mobile's press conference … Read more