One of them most annoying things about being a gadget lover in America is that none of the wireless carriers share all of their radio bands, making switching a phone from one carrier to another somewhere between difficult and impossible. But it’ll get a little easier by year’s end, thanks to T-Mobile’s continuing network upgrades. A company executive told journalists that it’s adding more wireless spectrum in targeted bands, so that international HSPA+ phones will finally work with speeds faster than 2G.

By extension, this also means that AT&T phones will be good to go on T-Mobile, assuming that you can get them unlocked. In fact this is probably T-Mobile’s aim, since the network has about a million iPhone users (all hilariously stuck with 2G data speeds) despite not offering the phone themselves. But for normal, sane people, it means that you’ll be able to buy an international phone (say, the Tegra 3 version of the HTC One X) pop in a T-Mobile SIM and get going.

There’s no mention of what this means for T-Mobile’s own phones. Obviously current T-Mobile phones can’t be moved to other GSM networks without suffering the same 2G speeds. But what will T-Mobile do to its own phone radios when its network uses the same 3G and HSPA+ bands as everyone else? Will T-Mobile phones be capable of worldwide roaming, or switching to another network entirely? we can only hope.

[via AllThingsD]

7 COMMENTS

  1. Personally, this is the beauty of T-Mobile because their parent is T-Mobile DT.  I think that they want to run TMO US this way.  ATT, Verizon, Sprint, won’t and can’t be run this way.  In Europe you can go into any carriers store and they have a hundred different phones to choose from. 

    I think that TMO’s strategy now with the failed merger (thankfully!) is to position themselves that you can use ANY unlocked phone of their network.  I think that would help bring in many more customers because of TMO’s pricing structure.  Plus with the added roaming agreements and spectrum from ATT in the failed merger, I think TMO will be growing fast in the next year or two and will surpass Sprint for sure and maybe even ATT in years to come.

    • I hope you are right. This sounds really good as I am a TMobile customer. I am eyeing the Sony Xperia Ion from ATT to use it on TMobile with 4G and all it’s phone functions of course. I can’t stand TMobiles phones. They always have Samsung and HTC phones. I don’t like those phones and will never buy them.

  2. So does this mean if I buy the Atrix HD Unlocked from ATT and put in my TMobile sim card it will get 3G and 4G Speeds? Can somone please answer this. I rally dont like TMobiles line up but theyre the only ones I can afford.

  3. So does this mean if I buy the Atrix HD Unlocked from ATT and put in my TMobile sim card it will get 3G and 4G Speeds? Can somone please answer this. I rally dont like TMobiles line up but theyre the only ones I can afford.

    • You can do that now….Atrix HD is a true pentaband phone meaning you can unlock it and get Tmobile 4G speeds. I have one on Tmobile myself 😉

      What I’d like to see though is the ATT One X unlocked with Tmobile 4G speed.

  4. So does this mean if I buy the Atrix HD Unlocked from ATT and put in my TMobile sim card it will get 3G and 4G Speeds? Can somone please answer this. I rally dont like TMobiles line up but theyre the only ones I can afford.

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