Nearly 1,000 cities and towns are now covered by T-Mobile's low-frequency 600MHz LTE band

by Alan Friedman / Aug 01, 2018, 11:58 AM

Nearly 1,000 cities and towns are now covered by T-Mobile's low-frequency 600MHz LTE band

You might recall last year's FCC auction of 600MHz airwaves, and all of the legal maneuvering that went on even before the auction took place. The reason? Up for grabs was 600MHz LTE spectrum, a low-frequency band that travels farther and penetrates buildings better than higher-frequency airwaves. Almost a year ago, T-Mobile won most of the airwaves up for bid, picking up 31MHz of the low-frequency spectrum auctioned off for $7.9 billion.

T-Mobile quickly went to work to integrate the new spectrum with its LTE network. According to Neville Ray, the carrier's CTO, 600MHz spectrum is now covering 992 cities and towns in 33 states. Of course, without phones that are compatible with the band, this would all be worthless. But right now, the network provider does offer 12 handsets that work with T-Mobile's 600MHz Extended Range LTE. These models include:

In several of the cities and towns, T-Mobile is also deploying 5G-ready equipment. This way, T-Mobile says that it will be able to provide 5G service over 600MHz once compatible handsets are released next year. The complete list of cities and towns that now feature T-Mobile's 600MHz LTE band can be found at this link.

source: T-Mobile

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5 Comments

1. monkeyb

Posts: 414; Member since: Jan 17, 2018

Just curious. Has anyone noticed the benifits from this spectrum? I am looking to shift to T-Mobile just because their network should have drastically improved with the help of 600mhz spectrum.

posted on Aug 01, 2018, 12:37 PM 2

2. yeayeayeaaa

Posts: 53; Member since: Oct 07, 2014

I have work friends who have tmobile like me. One guy has a S9+ and I have an S8. He gets much stronger and stable signal in elevators, basements, etc in our building than i do with my S8. 600mhz alive and well here in Tampa FL :)

posted on Aug 01, 2018, 2:20 PM 5

3. monkeyb

Thank you very much. I wish PA can find more information about improvements in T-Mobile due to 600mhz and share it with the crowd.

posted on Aug 01, 2018, 5:41 PM 1

4. doublestandardz

Posts: 103; Member since: Jul 06, 2018

This was very informative question thank u both for the information

posted on Aug 01, 2018, 8:41 PM 1

5. yeayeayeaaa

Glad I could help! I actually do Enterprise Account Control for VZW but a few of us run Tmo because of the speeds and less congested network during peak hours so its a best of both worlds haha