T-Mobile expands dual-carrier footprint; Verizon nears 100 LTE markets

The race between T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless to see who can build their muscled-up mobile broadband network the fastest picked up more speed today. T-Mobile today announced it has expanded its dual-carrier high-speed packet access plus (HSPA+) networks to 56 new markets, while Verizon Wireless is closing in on its 100-market milestone for long-term evolution (LTE). A VZW spokesman today confirmed that the operator will announce its 100th market launch, Tulsa, next week.

Though T-Mobile may be leading in number of markets, Verizon is probably pretty close in total pops covered. T-Mobile has its 42 Mb/s dual-carrier network deployed a combination of small and large cities, giving it a total of 170 million pops covered. With today’s launch it filled in some of the big-market holes in its footprint, adding coverage in Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Indianapolis; Minneapolis; Providence, R.I.; and Washington, D.C. The remaining 49 markets were in mid-sized cities and even small towns.

Meanwhile, Verizon started out big, launching LTE in the country’s largest metropolitan areas last December, and has been scaling down to mid-sized and small markets ever since. It hasn’t updated its coverage numbers since it reported its initial footprint of 110 million pops last year, but since then it has more than doubled the number of cities in which it offers its mobile broadband service, bringing it closer to its goal—if not exceeding it--of 185 million pops covered by year end (CP: Verizon preps for next phase of LTE expansion). Verizon isn’t stopping at 100 markets either. It plans to have LTE in 147 cities this year.

Save for mobile broadband USB modem owners, most T-Mobile customers in the new markets won’t notice much of a difference. As the dual-carrier name implies, T-Mobile is aggregating two 5 MHz HSPA+ carriers into a single 10 MHz downlink to produce those awesome speeds, but only one device, the Rocket 3.0 modem has the complimentary dual-carrier radio to tap that capacity. All of T-Mobile’s smartphones use single-carrier technology, meaning they can access only half of the network’s bandwidth (CP: T-Mobile rolls out dual-carrier HSPA+).

T-Mobile’s smartphone customers won’t necessarily need dual-carrier capabilities. Even by accessing only a single carrier, T-Mobile’s smartphone speeds have been creeping past its competitors. In recent test reports from PC Mag and Root Metrics, T-Mobile’s average download speeds have started surpassing Sprint’s WiMAX service, despite the latter technologies’ technical advantages (CP: Sprint loses ground in 4G wars as T-Mobile gets faster). In addition, though T-Mobile’s customers can’t access dual-carrier’s higher speeds, they benefit from the networks higher overall capacity. By deploying dual-carrier, T-Mobile effectively doubled the loads it can support on its networks.

Verizon’s LTE, however, is still the fastest thing on the airwaves, in many cases tripling the speeds offered up by competitors. T-Mobile can’t match Verizon’s smartphone speeds, but with the Rocket it stands a chance of challenging Verizon on laptop connectivity speeds. No independent studies have been done comparing USB modem performance, but T-Mobile is marketing average dual-carrier speeds of 10 Mb/s. Verizon markets rather conservative LTE speeds of 5 Mb/s to 12 Mb/s, but many independent studies show its relatively unloaded network far exceeding that baseline. (CP: Can T-Mobile’s dual-carrier HSPA+ match VZW’s LTE?).

While the hyper-broadband race picks up between VZW and T-Mobile, AT&T is just getting ready to enter its first heat. It plans to launch LTE in four markets this summer, and on Tuesday unveiled its first two LTE devices: a USB modem and a wireless hotspot, both made by Sierra Wireless (CP: AT&T debuts LTE devices as network nears go-time).

For the longest time, Sprint was the mobile broadband frontrunner, its Clearwire-supplied WiMAX service enjoying a year advantage before it faced a legitimate challenger. But due to lack of funds, Clearwire’s network expansion has stalled just short of 120 million pops covered, though Sprint and Clearwire are expected to revive their 4G plans with a switch to LTE this summer (CP: Are we witnessing the resurgence of Sprint?).