T-Mobile USA recently announced continued expansion and availability of its HSPA+ super-fast mobile broadband network that delivers 4G speeds in the Northeastern U.S. and other major cities across the country. 

Understandably AT&T did not like it. “I think that companies need to be careful that they’re not misleading customers by labeling HSPA+ as a 4G technology,” AT&T Mobility spokesman Seth Bloom told Fierce Wireless. “We aren’t labeling those technologies as 4G.”

Using the HSPA+, the T-Mobile claims to deliver network theoretical peak download speeds of 21Mbps. “Our competitors are asking consumers to pay more for faster wireless service with limited coverage and very few capable devices,” said Neville Ray, senior vice president of Engineering and Operations for T-Mobile USA. “In contrast, T-Mobile is already delivering 4G speeds today to customers and we continue to make major leaps in expanding our HSPA+ mobile broadband footprint.”

HSPA+ is one step ahead to earlier 3GPP HSPA.  Techincally it can not be called a true 4G as in case of LTE/LTE-Advanced & 4G. However it has potential to grow further.

See below Evolutionary Steps of HSPA+ (source 3gamericas)

T-Mobile was the first operator in the U.S. to launch HSPA+ with peak theoretical throughput of up to 21 Mbps in Philadelphia in September 2009. In July 2009, TIM Italy launched the world’s first HSPA+ network using MIMO offering peak theoretical download speeds of 28 Mbps. Shortly thereafter, O2 in Germany, Swisscom in Switzerland and M1 in Singapore also launched HSPA+ services. 

Adopting HSPA+ as the next step enables operators to meet customer demands quickly and cost-effectively, using existing infrastructure and spectrum. And, when the time is right – when expanding HSPA+ capacity is less economical or operationally more challenging than upgrading to LTE – HSPA+ offers a natural evolution path to LTE, according to a recent AIRCOM analysis.