T-Mobile began deploying its 600MHz Extended Range LTE coverage last year in Cheyenne, WY, and since then it's been rolled out in several other cities. Today T-Mo gave us an update on how its 600MHz deployment is going.
T-Mobile says that its 600MHz LTE coverage is now live in more than 900 cities and towns across 32 states. For 120 of those markets, it's the first time that they've gotten any T-Mo LTE coverage.
You can find the full list of T-Mobile 600MHz LTE markets right here.
Included in today's announcement are some details on T-Mobile's upcoming 600MHz plans. Starting this month, T-Mobile will begin enabling carrier aggregation for 600MHz LTE and mid-band LTE, which will allow customers with capable devices to access the capacity of both at the same time and get faster download speeds. T-Mobile also says that it plans to start deploying 600MHz Extended Range LTE in Puerto Rico this fall.
T-Mobile spent nearly $8 billion on 600MHz licenses in an FCC spectrum auction last year, and lately it's been aggressively deploying the coverage across the country. It's easy to understand why, because the 600MHz LTE signal reaches twice as far as T-Mobile's mid-band LTE and is also four times better at penetrating buildings.
In order to access T-Mobile's 600MHz LTE coverage, you'll need a compatible device. T-Mobile currently sells six devices 600MHz devices — the Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S8 Active, LG G7 ThinQ, LG V30, and LG K30 — and T-Mo says that more than 12 additional 600MHz devices will launch in 2018.