T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS today outlined their plans to transition their disparate GSM/HSPA+ and CDMA/LTE networks into a single HSPA+/LTE network within several years. Speaking to investors, the companies explained that MetroPCS’s 1X CDMA network will be turned off by 2015.
Thanks in part to the high rate of device turnover within MetroPCS, they believe it won’t be difficult to transition customers from MetroPCS’s CDMA-based handsets to ones using the same GSM-based technology offered by T-Mobile.
T-Mobile is already in the process of refarming its 1900MHz spectrum for use with GSM/HSPA+ rather than GSM/EDGE. With MetroPCS’s 1900MHz CDMA network turned off, it could then be used to supplement T-Mobile’s HSPA+ coverage.
The combined T-Mobile/MetroPCS will eventually offer GSM/HSPA+ entirely in the 1900MHz band, and LTE 4G in the 1700MHz AWS band.
