T-Mobile Will Deploy SA 5G This Quarter

T-Mobile plans to deploy standalone (SA) 5G technology in the current calendar quarter. The company believes that with this strategy they could beat rivals AT&T and Verizon to the punch.

T-Mobile's president of technology Neville Ray wrote in a blog post that it was hard at work preparing for the rollout following multi-vendor radio and core trials in May. "Beyond improving coverage, speeds and latency, the technology will pave the way for applications that require real-time responses and massive connectivity including AR, VR, cloud gaming, smart factories and connected vehicles," Ray said.

Ray also outlined the continued expansion of T-Mobile’s non-standalone 5G network, noting it used Sprint’s 2.5GHz spectrum to roll out coverage in Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. It launched mid-band 5G in New York City and Philadelphia earlier this year. He added the operator now covers 225 million people across nearly 6,000 cities and towns with low-band 5G using 600MHz spectrum.