T-Mobile’s Simple Global plan may steal the headlines tonight but not to be out-shined is a brand new set of LTE announcements. T-Mobile’s announcing 202 million people are now covered in 233 metro areas covering 91 of the top 100 largest markets by population.

T-Mobile’s LTE market announcement is almost one month to date from their earlier news of 180 million POPs covered in more than 154 markets. Let’s just be honest, that’s a HUGE amount of work in a little under a month to make sure this announcement was ready for UnCarrier Phase 3. T-Mobile’s not just making announcements tonight as they are also making waves calling out the competition with recent third-party test results.

T-Mobile claims their nationwide 4G LTE network delivers faster speeds than both Verizon and Sprint. T-Mobile also claims faster median speeds than AT&T’s 4G LTE network in 10 of the top 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). T-Mobile has long promised they would hit 200 million LTE POPs covered before the end of 2013 and it looks like they’ll blow that number out of the water with 2.5 months left in the year.

• T-Mobile’s latest-generation 4G LTE network reaches more than 200 million people in 233 metro areas in the U.S., including 91 of the top 100 largest by population.
• 4G LTE is on top of and in addition to our nationwide 4G HSPA+ network, which covers 229 million people. Customers with LTE devices get access to both 4G technologies, creating one of the fastest combined wireless experiences available in the U.S.
• We expect our LTE customers to experience typical download speeds of 6 to 20 Mbps. That’s like downloading an 11 song album in 35 seconds or a two hour (SD) movie from Google Play in less than five minutes.
• T-Mobile is the only U.S. wireless company with nationwide HD Voice. All 15 of our LTE smartphones are HD Voice capable. We now have 18 total HD Voice capable smartphones.
• T-Mobile plans to deploy 10+10 MHz of 4G LTE in 90 percent of the top 25 metro areas by year end. We will begin to deploy 20+20 MHz of LTE in 2014 and beyond.

In network news, T-Mobile tonight also announced that its latest-generation 4G LTE network is now nationwide, reaching more than 200 million people in 233 metros across the United States.

“We’ve not only delivered nationwide 4G LTE months ahead of schedule,” said Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer for T-Mobile. “Our nationwide 4G LTE is right on top of our already nationwide 4G HSPA+ network – which translates to one wicked fast combined 4G network experience.”

In recent third party tests involving millions of results from real customers nationwide, T-Mobile’s 4G LTE nationwide network delivered faster speeds than the 4G LTE networks of Verizon and Sprint. Additionally, T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network already has faster median speeds than AT&T’s 4G LTE network in 10 of the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). In fact, T-Mobile’s new nationwide LTE network delivers 4G LTE speeds more consistently than any of the national providers.

The complete list of T-Mobile’s LTE Metro coverage areas are listed in the image below: