T-Mobile reveals 3G plans
T-Mobile was quite active in the recent FCC auction for wireless spectrum and we knew a press conference was going to be made today in regards to their 3G plans. As a T-Mobile customer I have been patiently waiting for them to finally get on the 3G bandwagon and have been disappointed in how far behind Cingular, Verizon and Sprint they have been. Arne Hess posted the text of the release scheduled to be made in New York today.
While the news is initially exciting, looking deeper into the details reveals that T-Mobile USA will use the 1,700 and 2,100 MHz bands and that the 2,100 MHz band will not be compatible with the European 2,100 MHz band. Thus, there are currently no devices on the market that will work with their new 3G network. It's a good thing I didn't spend the US$700+ on the HTC TyTN that has the European 2,100 MHz frequency radio. Roll-out is expected to start in the 4th quarter of this year and since I live in the area where they are based I expect to be one of the first areas with the new network. We now have to keep our eyes out and hope that some good hardware will soon be announced that works on this new network. It would be great to see the expected T-Mobile Dash (HTC Excalibur) launched with support for their new 3G network, but I don't think we'll see these devices until later this year.
