T-Mobile expands 600 MHz Extended Range LTE coverage

T-Mobile US said the 600 MHz Extended Range LTE coverage is available in over 900 cities and towns across 32 states.
T-Mobile 5G network with Nokia and Ericsson
The latest investment in network indicates that T-Mobile’s LTE coverage has gone up to 120 places for the very first time. T-Mobile will bring 600 MHz Extended Range LTE to Puerto Rico this fall, providing more LTE coverage and capacity and laying the foundation for 5G with 5G-ready equipment.

Neville Ray, chief technology officer for T-Mobile, said: “The team is working to deploy 600 MHz LTE throughout the country, and we’re already expanding the network and challenging the Duopoly in places they’ve never had to compete before.”

T-Mobile’s Extended Range LTE signals travel twice as far from the tower and are four times better in buildings than mid-band LTE, providing increased coverage and capacity.

T-Mobile has already deployed Extended Range LTE to more than 80 percent of Americans with 700 MHz (Band 12), and rapidly began deploying it with 600 MHz (Band 71) last year to expand coverage and capacity.

In April 2017, T-Mobile tripled its low-band spectrum holdings by purchasing 45 percent of the spectrum sold in the US government’s 600 MHz auction — 31 MHz nationwide on average and a whopping 50 MHz in Puerto Rico.

Nokia on June 7 said T-Mobile completed bi-directional over-the-air 5G data session on a 5G New Radio (NR) system in T-Mobile’s Bellevue lab. The test was conducted with a user equipment simulator and Nokia’s 5G solution in the 28 GHz band.

T-Mobile used Nokia AirScale baseband and radio, AirFrame server, and AirScale Cloud RAN for the 5G data transmission.