T-Mobile first to blanket UK in HSUPA
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jul 3rd 2008 10:06PM
posted Jul 3rd 2008 10:06PM
What's the first network to claim a true, full HSPA across all of the United Kingdom? Vodafone? Orange? 3? Nope -- try T-Mobile, which has just flipped the switch on its HSUPA upgrades nationwide to bring upload speeds to a blazing 1.4Mbps (theoretically, anyway). The figured they'd commemorate the occasion by giving download speeds a little boost, too, so those are now up to 7.2Mbps, making Great Britain an absolutely fabulous place to do a little mobile computing right now. Oh, and hey, T-Mobile USA, you could seriously learn a lesson or two from your counterparts across the Atlantic here.[Via Tech Digest]
Hey, that's great, now if only T-Mobile USA could do the same...
At first glance I read it wrong and thought it said US instead of UK. I was like "whhhhaaaaaattt???" I knew that was just too crazy to be true.
It's probably a bit easier than the US rollout
1) Smaller country
2) Established hardware on the 2100MHz band and most popular protocol for 3G
Just 'cause it's smaller doesn't mean it's easier. Or am I overestimating the difficulty of fully rolling out HSUPA in the Scottish Highlands? I always thought that was all mountains; fully blanketing that must be quite a challenge.
Umm, yeah, the size difference is substantial making it a hell of a lot simpler. Superimpose a map of the UK on top of a map of the US and you'll see the difference. The US has rugged terrain, as well; I'm not really getting your point.
Amongst other reasons (and there are several), the size of the US has limited its technological cellular advances.
The difference is that apparently T-Mobile UK has successfully covered this rugged area in 3.5G when the American equivalent is (as far as I know) still on 2G, maybe even analog.
By the time T-Mo puts HSUPA on this side of the pond, we'll be oohing and aahing at LTE's successor.
put Robert Dotson down, and it will be
If you're counting on T-Mobile USA to be in the forefront of what's going on with 3G, 4G or whatever comes down the pike you're going to be sorely disappointed. T-Mobile has thus far shown themselves to be basically the "value" carrier. They don't have as much as the big boys Verizon or AT&T, but then again they didn't have the 13 year head start that those "cellular" carriers had either. T-Mobile will always be at a disadvantage being limited to PCS 1900. The only possible way that T-Mobile could leap to the front is if they bought either AT&T or Verizon. The likelihood of that happening is practically nil. This is part of the same reason why T-Mobile's selection of phones is so dismal as well.
the current network maximums expected should be connection speeds in the region of 4.5Mbp/s.