T-Mobile says its ultrafast 5G up to 3.3Gbps is now available

T-Mobile has begun the rollout of its new 5G technology that can deliver speeds of up to 3.3Gbps using carrier aggregation, which combines four different 5G channels into one (for the time being) for devices that can handle it. ) adds to. Samsung's new Galaxy S23 phones only), similar to the trick used by Wi-Fi routers to create faster connections.

That's faster than the speeds you'd get from mmWave 5G, which has been promoted more by Verizon and AT&T and is capable of extremely high speeds — Ookla recently reported download speeds of up to 1.6Gbps in the US. However, it has limited range and equipment support and is easily obstructed by common obstacles such as trees and buildings.

The four channels T-Mobile is using include 1,900 MHz of spectrum acquired from T-Mobile and Sprint's prepackaged 3G networks, as well as two 2.5 GHz channels (or carriers) and 600 MHz. According to a company release, the rollout is already live in certain parts of T-Mobile's network and "will be available nationwide in the coming weeks," though you'll have to guess where that is because T-Mobile didn't specify. Have done Used to be.

Senior communications manager Justin Paulsen told The Verge in an email that no specific plan is required to take advantage of aggregated channels, and there is no limit on connection speed. However, not everyone will be able to use the fast connection right now – you'll need the Samsung Galaxy S23, which has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon X70 modem found in the OnePlus 11 5G.

AT&T and T-Mobile are working on similar upgrades, as AT&T reported earlier this year that it had aggregated two upload channels, while Verizon reported upload speeds of over one gigabit in its testing. and has reported seeing downloads of up to 4.3 Gbps. But it looks like T-Mobile has been the first to start using it in the real world, at least among the major US carriers. Last year, it announced that it had achieved 3Gbps throughput with this technology on a live, standalone 5G network, which no other cell service provider has done yet.

Ulf Avaldsson, president of technology at T-Mobile, says that, as the only company with a standalone 5G network, "T-Mobile is the only provider to bring game-changing technologies like four-carrier aggregation to market".