T-Mobile USA is about to expand their HSPA+ network and software upgrade to an additional 19 cities starting on July 21, including Cleveland, Austin, Baltimore, DC, Portland, Hawaii, and Minneapolis.
Cities covered by T-Mobile’s AWS HSPA+ network are T-Mobile customers in Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, Tampa, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, New Orleans and Charleston. In addition, HSPA+ has been expanded to Bentonville, Ark.. Anderson, S.C. and Fayetteville, N.C. are now good to go for HSPA+ service.
T-Mobile says devices that benefit from faster speeds with HSPA+ including the newest smartphone available from T-Mobile this month – the Nokia E73. The Nokia E73 (right) will be available in stores today.
Additionally, T-Mobile will be launching the new webConnect Rocket 2.0 USB data stick on July 21st. T-Mobile’s webConnect Rocket, using the AWS band to deliver HSPA+t, is being upgraded to the webConnect Rocket 2.0, which can deliver HSPA+ speeds on both PC and Mac platforms. There’s also a microSDHC slot for loading up to 16GB of storage, and a hinged USB connector.
T-Mobile’s 21-Mbit/s HSPA+ upgrade, with real world speeds closer to 10 Mbit/s, is the fastest that the wireless technology can be cranked with software — rather than hardware — updates. A 42-Mbit/s HSPA+ version would require new MIMO antennas.
The Samsung Vibrant (right), will launch on July 21st for $199. It’s T-Mobile’s flavor of the Galaxy S, and features Android 2.1, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, WiFi, and a 4-inch Super AMOLED display.
T-Mobile USA will launch the first HSPA+ smartphone in September, reports Light Reading. The device will be manufactured by HTC and will run on Google’s Android operating system, according to a spokesman at Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile’s parent. The handset will likely be the world’s first HSPA+ smartphone, and the first smartphone able to handle T-Mobile’s upgraded 3G network with peak downlink network speeds up to 21 Mbit/s.
T-Mobile expects to deliver HSPA+ speeds in 100 major metropolitan areas with backhaul in place, covering 185 million people in the U.S. by the end of this year.
