T-Mobile passes on HSPA+ and will instead move straight on to 4G LTE

T-Mobile passes on HSPA+ and will instead move straight on to 4G LTE. According to T-Mobile's Chief technology officer, Joachim Horn, T-Mobile will not deploy high-speed packet access (HSPA) evolution (HSPA+) to get more out of its 3G mobile broadband network and will instead move straight on to LTE (the so-called 4G technology, Long-Term Evolution).

"We'll deploy HSPA as long as there is no hardware replacement necessary," he said. "We'll do every other efficiency increase that's software-based." That means T-Mobile plans to upgrade its 3G network only up to peak downlink speeds of 14.4 Mbit/s and skip HSPA Evolution altogether. After that, it wants LTE.

With software upgrades, T-Mobile can boost its current 7.2 Mbit/s HSDPA network up to 14.4 Mbit/s on the downlink. Beyond that, HSPA Evolution (or HSPA+) can boost 3G network speeds to 28.8 Mbit/s and higher, but it requires hardware changes because it needs MIMO antennas. And that's where T-Mobile draws the line.

(source)