T-Mobile USA to get rolling on 3G

T-Mobile USA Inc. plans to officially launch its 3G network starting next week. The launch comes about two years after the nation’s No. 4 carrier paid $4.2 billion for advanced wireless services (AWS) spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 66, spectrum the carrier plans to use for its 3G network.
Although T-Mobile USA has spent the past two years quietly building its W-CDMA network and device lineup, the carrier in the coming days plans to report progress on its 3G rollout beyond New York, as well as details regarding devices that will support the network. T-Mobile USA took a similar low profile approach when it launched GPRS and EDGE services on its traditional GSM-based 2G network.
Further, the carrier said its 3G network will support both voice and data when it launches next week, refuting news reports and blog posts that had indicated the network would initially only support voice services.
T-Mobile USA announced in 2006 that it planned to spend around $2.6 billion building its 3G network, and that it hoped to commercially introduce the service by the middle of last year.
T-Mobile USA, part of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG, bid aggressively in 2006’s AWS auction – the carrier spent more on spectrum than any other bidder – and essentially doubled its spectrum capacity in the top 100 U.S. markets. However, the carrier sat out the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction; rivals AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless were the big winners in that auction.