LTE to arrive imminently on T-Mobile USA

T-Mobile, the last major US carrier not to offer LTE, will correct this with a Las Vegas launch, according to reports coming out of CES.

T-Mobile’s CTO Neville Ray told journalists at a Citi Global conference at CES that LTE would be turned on in Las Vegas in a week or two. He hinted that T-Mobile has tried to get the network ready in time for a CES launch, but has just missed the mark.

While the network will soon be ready it won’t officially offer any LTE enabled devices at launch. “There will be a period when markets are up but we don’t have devices yet,” Ray said. However, the T-Mobile Galaxy Note 2 can be upgraded OTA to enable LTE while some AT&T LTE phones will also work, giving an option for some who might wish to switch.

T-Mobile has been making do without LTE thanks to a widespread HSPA+ network offering up to 42Mbps downloads, which is faster than LTE in some areas. However, as HSPA+ is the end of the line for that technology it now needs to move to LTE to continue to compete.

The company said it hopes to cover a population of 100m with LTE by summer 2013.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 20^th-21^st November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.