LTE going live in Taft, CA and wideband LTE spotted in Winder, GA & West Valley City, Utah
Caught on the job, in Taft, CA
Our inbox has yet again been filled with first-time LTE sightings, wideband LTE and VoLTE spots. Neville Ray’s network team is still pushing hard to get this network as strong and quick as possible. It would make sense, given the latest phase of Uncarrier, to get the network to a competitive level. After all, there’s no point offering a 7-day test drive of your network if it’s useless.
One reader got in touch from Taft, California where he just started noticing 4G LTE show up in his phone’s status bar. Signal wasn’t strong, reliable or fast, but he did notice some work being done on the mast/tower nearby (pic above). As you can see from the screenshot below, speeds were very slow compared to most LTE networks, but that’s normally when the technology is still being implemented and tested.
Wideband LTE is seemingly going live in a huge number of areas right now. That’s 15+15 or 20+20 LTE, and we’ve seen speeds range anywhere from 55Mbps up to almost 100Mbps. More recently, we’ve been sent some very impressive speed test results from a handful of locations.
Undoubtedly the most impressive of those three is the final speed test done in West Valley City, Utah. It’s not often we see speeds over 100Mbps, but we know it’s theoretically possible.
Of course, most of this is just T-Mobile continuing to make its network “Data Strong”. Building a network that can handle customers doing virtually everything over a high-speed wireless network. Including calls. Which brings us nicely on to VoLTE. A service which has been spotted recently in Portland, Oregon and Phoenix, Arizona according to our readers there.
Don’t forget, if you notice LTE going live in a new location, send me an email to cam@tmonews.com. Include speed test screenshots from your phone, map it using the Sensorly app and send us screenshots of that too.