WiMax? Who? T-Mobile Bring 4G Like Speed To the Masses

Full disclosure. I am partial to T-Mobile USA. And Sprint PCS was my first mobile service provider back in the, well, dark ages of cellular service. It's it's difficult for me to pit the two against each other but since I'm with T-Mobile now, I'm going to plug them a bit here. And there's good reason.

And T-Mobile has announced its next generation 3G service, HSPA+ for 25 metropolitan areas including major cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, and Atlanta. I've waited and waited and its finally here for my city. By the end of June, HSPA+ service will cover 75 million users. Devices that work includes 15 handsets and a dedicated USB modem, the webConnect Rocket.

Between now and then, T-Mobile hope to blanket over 185 million users with the service. Furthermore, T-Mobile doesn't seem to imply it has issues its bigger rival, ATT, has. Recently, ATT announced pretty anemic wireless plans that ration wireless Internet access.

T-Mobile, as well as Sprint, do not have any such plans. In fact, T-Mobile is considering metered speed rather than rationed access. Personally, with my two-year contract up and despite my love for the iPhone 4, I am not sure I'm going to migrate over to ATT just to use the latest and greatest mobile device from Apple.

More impressive is that T-Mobile seems to imply they've got plenty of bandwidth to go around. I've advocated Apple bring the iPhone over to T-Mobile in the past and, recently, this seems more plausible.

So while Sprint has EVO, Verizon has Droid, and ATT has iPhone 4, T-Mobile has HSPA+ with devices like myTouch, Garminfone, and the upcoming Galaxy S from Samsung, T-Mobile's stars could be aligned for once: strong lineup and the network to back it up.

More at Engadget, TmoNews,

Note: HSPA+. This is T-Mobile's "4G-like" 3G service with a theoretical upload of 21Mbps. In reality, it's not even close but for the moment, users could care less as T-Mobile was a late comer to the 3G wireless services. However, with this deployment, it has really surpassed Verizon Wireless as well as ATT and rival Sprint's WiMax, a true 4G wireless connection.

Another note: On June 19th, T-Mobile will be offering phones to users who sign up for qualified plans. A lot of these phones are Android-based. This is one of the best deals I've seen.