T-Mobile more than doubles its LTE Advanced footprint to 920+ markets across USA. In addition, the operator announced Gigabit Class LTE readiness with a combination of three speed-boosting technologies carrier aggregation, 4X4 MIMO and 256 QAM that is available in 430 of those markets.

At an event for media and analysts in the San Jose Convention Center today, Qualcomm and T-Mobile demonstrated the speed and power of Gigabit Class LTE on T-Mobile’s network with flagship smartphones powered by Snapdragon Gigabit LTE modems. T-Mobile also unveiled plans to launch License Assisted Access (LAA), another advanced LTE technology which taps into unlicensed spectrum, on small cells this year to further densify the network for even more capacity and speed.

Along with sufficient spectrum and backhaul, Gigabit Class LTE is achieved by simultaneously accessing this trifecta of LTE Advanced technologies in both the device and the network to increase capacity, improve spectral efficiency, reduce congestion, and ultimately deliver faster real-world speeds.  According to T-Mobile, Gigabit Class LTE is an important milestone on the path to 5G, providing a solid foundation on which 5G networks will be built.

T-Mobile has been rolling out LTE Advanced technologies in the network since 2014. The company has more than doubled its LTE Advanced footprint since last year and is rapidly expanding the technology trifecta in its nationwide LTE network on a massive scale. Earlier this year, T-Mobile had launched LTE-U, the precursor to LAA, in select locations.  

The demonstrations highlighted the capabilities of Android devices powered by the Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform with X16 LTE -- Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy Note8, Moto Z2 Force Edition, and LG V30 – on T-Mobile’s LTE Advanced network.