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Update: T-Mobile 3G voice and data launches in NY

I was getting all excited today after reading the rumors that T-Mobile was going to start rolling out its 3G network in New York tomorrow. I contacted my T-Mobile PR person to try to get some confirmation, but never heard anything back except for the continued party line that T-Mobile plans to start rolling out 3G this Summer. The Boy Genius Report posted the depressing news that only voice may be rolled out on T-Mobile's 3G network tomorrow.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

I was getting all excited today after reading the rumors that T-Mobile was going to start rolling out its 3G network in New York tomorrow. I contacted my T-Mobile PR person to try to get some confirmation, but never heard anything back except for the continued party line that T-Mobile plans to start rolling out 3G this Summer. The Boy Genius Report posted the depressing news that only voice may be rolled out on T-Mobile's 3G network tomorrow.

I have to admit that I never really thought of 3G in terms of voice support because I have always had good voice experiences with T-Mobile, even when they were running on a basic GSM network. The one benefit we may see from this voice-only rollout is that we may now be able to make calls while accessing the internet and we shouldn't lose calls while checking email anymore. I think this capability is a feature of 3G, but am not real clear if the data also has to be activated on the 3G network. AT&T has both voice and data on 3G and I never heard of this voice/data split before.

By the time T-Mobile rolls out their 3G data network, the rest of the carriers may be running 4G. At least I have been having pretty good luck with the T-Mobile HotSpot @Home Talk Forever service.

UPDATE: Whew, the good news is that the T-Mobile roll out today in NY is for both VOICE and DATA (according to reports over on Howard Forums) so that last rumor appears to have thankfully been false,. It sure would be nice to hear something more official from T-Mobile, especially given the long delays in getting this rollout kicked off.

It is currently only UMTS data and not HSDPA like AT&T has, but at least it is a start for T-Mobile. There is only a small number of Nokia and Samsung (four actually) phones that currently support this new 3G spectrum, but hopefully the rollout proceeds quickly and we start seeing some higher end devices that can really take advantage of the higher speed data network.

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