T-Mobile executives announced at the company's "Uncarrier" event in New York City Tuesday that it will finally officially offer the iPhone.
(Credit: CNET)
T-Mobile USA will offer the iPhone on its network at long last.
The company announced the news at its "Uncarrier" event in New York today. T-Mobile will begin selling the iPhone 5 on Friday, April 12. The new iPhone 5 will be available for a $99.99 down payment. T-Mobile will also offer the iPhone 5 without a contract. And it will operate on T-Mobile's new LTE network, which it also announced today.
CNET reported Monday that an iPhone announcement was expected. T-Mobile is the last of the major carriers to get the iPhone on its network. And the company is hoping that adding the iPhone will help it anchor customers to its service.
For years, T-Mobile has steadily been losing customers as its much bigger rivals AT&T and Verizon Wireless have gained new customers. T-Mobile hopes that by offering the iPhone, it can stem some of the defections.
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While T-Mobile has never officially offered the iPhone in the past, there have been many millions of customers who have used their unlocked iPhones on the company's network. But the performance of these devices has been slow compared to AT&T. The main reason for this is that AT&T and T-Mobile use different radio frequencies for their 3G and HSPA+ networks.
But T-Mobile is in the middle of a major network upgrade, in which it's aligning its frequencies for 3G and HSPA+ service with AT&T. What this means for T-Mobile users is that 3G and HSPA+ devices made for AT&T, should be able to get top speeds in markets where the network migration is complete.
T-Mobile also announced the launch of its new 4G LTE network at today's event. While AT&T uses a different frequency than T-Mobile for the bulk of its LTE network, there is some overlap in radio frequencies. As a result, devices, such as the iPhone 5, which supports LTE for AT&T's network, include radios that will also operate on the radio frequencies that T-Mobile is using for its LTE network. This means that LTE devices like the iPhone 5, the BlackBerry Z10 and the recently LTE upgraded Galaxy Note 2, should all work at top speed on T-Mobile's LTE network.
cnet.com
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