Less than two weeks after informing the Federal Communications Commission that is plans to “rapidly deploy” its 600 MHz spectrum, T-Mobile US today followed through, using Nokia equipment to light up sites in Cheyenne, Wy., according to the carrier.
In an Aug. 4 “ex parte notice” to the FCC, T-Mobile US used the “rapidly deploy” language regarding the 600 MHz spectrum the service provider purchased during the FCC-led incentive auction that concluded in March. A key part of the immediate plans for the new spectrum is bringing “new competition and choice to rural areas previous unserved by T-Mobile,” according to the document, which summarizes an Aug. 2 conversation between T-Mobile execs and FCC representatives.
In addition to the Wyoming deployment, T-Mobile said it is targeted Northwest Oregon, West Texas, Southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, Central Virginia and Eastern Washington for 600 MHz activation.
CTO Neville Ray, in a statement, said the 600 MHz deployments would take six months in “what would normally be a two-year process. This team broke every record in the books with the speed of our 700 MHz LTE deployment, and we’re doing it again.”
The FCC set a 39-month timeline for television broadcasters to clear their operations from the 600 MHz spectrum band, which would put full spectrum availability into early 2020, or about the time most expect commercial 5G services to be coming on air.
Last week at the Oppenheimer Technology, Internet and Communications Conference, Vice President of Investor Relations Nils Paellmann discussed the 600 MHz roll out in the context of 5G and the internet of things (IoT).
“We are not going to wait 39 months. We are going to roll out much sooner. We are working with many of the broadcasters to relocate the spectrum. By 2020 it should be nearly rolled out. We can basically use our roll out of the 600 with LTE to also lay the foundation of future 5G. A lot of the radios…will be upgradable, through a software upgrade, to 5G. We think the 600 [spectrum] could be very interesting for IoT applications. Clearly, for a lot of the IoT things you will need ubiquitous coverage. The high bandwidth spectrum, the millimeter wave that people talk about, will never give you the coverage. When we do 600, you won’t have necessarily the same speed you would have with millimeter wave…but I think it’s a slightly different use case. For a lot of IoT you don’t need the multi-gigabit speed, necessarily.”
He added that he’s expecting compatible handsets from Samsung and LG to be in the market in time for the holidays.
