T-Mobile announced today its plans for a spiffy new 3G network, which is about what we expected. The network will be UMTS-based, and its plan is to spend a hair over $2 billion on the project, which should be completed by 2009. Unfortunately, it must operate at frequencies incompatible with the European UMTS standard.
That’s not ideal, as existing handsets won’t be able to take advantage of the new bandwidth. Instead, T-Mobile is expecting to start rolling out its own line-up of devices in the middle of next year. This will likely include phones, PDAs, smartphones and laptop cards. Since T-Mobile has been a fan of HTC lately, it’s a good bet that the HTC TyTN will make an appearance, while Catherine Zeta Jones will not.
But that doesn’t mean it’s resting lazily on its collective T-Mobehinds. In fact, it’s starting roll-out immediately, as in it has already started. That means if you’re in a moderately metropolitan area, you can start using wireless broadband in less than a year.
T-Mobile USA Begins Rollout of New 3G Network [The Unwired]
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