T-Mobile doubles the speed of their LTE network to 400Mbps
T-Mobile had some nice network news to share today. The company has announced an improvement to their LTE network that should double the maximum theoretical throughput speeds for downloads from 200 megabits per second to 400. Here is a quick explanation of the technology they’ve deployed to achieve the new speeds:
Today, I’m proud to announce that we’re first (again) to introduce new technology that delivers a massive 2x speed boost to customers. 4×4 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) doubles the number of data paths between a cell site and your phone. Double the paths = up to double the speed than before!
But, we’re not stopping there. Today, we’re also first to launch another new technology – 256 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) for downloads and 64 QAM for uploads. These new technologies increase the number of bits delivered per transmission for even faster speeds. In fact, combined with 4×4 MIMO, 256 QAM delivers download speeds up to a blazing fast 400 Mbps.
Unfortunately, there are some catches. For starters, the goods are only deployed in about 319 markets to start. It’s a lot, but T-Mobile has a lot more to do as that is only about half their network. Thankfully the company has plans to light everyone up by the end of October.
Furthermore, T-Mobile says this will only be available for users of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge to start, which isn’t a very deep cast of characters. That said, we imagine that they’ll try to add newer devices from this point forward. Those with compatible phones can look forward to an update at some point next month.