T-Mobile Joins 5G Race With Early Service Set for New York, Los Angeles
Top U.S. carriers are taking differing paths, both geographically and technically, as they plot out upgrades to their wireless networks in the country.
T-Mobile US Inc. TMUS +1.03% said it plans to launch fifth-generation, or 5G, service across 30 cities in the fourth quarter, hitting parts of New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Dallas first.
The inclusion of Dallas could ruffle feathers at rival AT&T Inc., T -1.10% which picked its headquarters city along with suburb-heavy swaths of Waco, Texas, and Atlanta for its early 5G service rollout.
T-Mobile said it would initially target cellphone users rather than businesses to better align with its customer base.
“This race to be first at something, that’s not really relevant,” T-Mobile technology chief Neville Ray said Tuesday in an interview, a jab at competitors that plan to offer 5G service this year before the attendant phones and engineering standards are set.
Mr. Ray said he hopes the first phones that can use the high-bandwidth standard will be ready by early 2019, though T-Mobile’s network would get the upgrades sooner.
Sprint Corp. S -1.14% earlier this week said it would prepare its infrastructure in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles with “5G-like capabilities” that should give cellphone users faster internet connections. But it likely won’t have full 5G service, with its high-speed connections, until the first half of next year.
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