(Credit: T-Mobile)
T-Mobile is promising improved 5G coverage as it activates the 2.5GHz spectrum it won in a 2022 FCC auction.
The spectrum will help the carrier cover rural areas and increase its capacity. T-Mobile said that 92% of counties in Louisiana are covered by this expansion, for example, while 2.2 million people in Pennsylvania may benefit, too. Overall, though, it will cover nearly 60 million customers over 300,000 square miles. Eventually, coverage will reach over 80 million people.
T-Mobile will officially flip the switch in the next few days, almost two years after the FCC held Auction 108, which sold licenses to the aforementioned 2.5GHz spectrum. T-Mobile paid $304 million to obtain more than 7,000 county-based licenses (PDF). This 2.5GHz spectrum provides a good combination of range and speed for 5G, which is helpful in reaching customers located far from mobile network towers.
T-Mobile also recently got to crow about being named the fastest provider by Ookla's Speedtest.net, where its median download speed hit 188.96Mbps down compared to Verizon's 91.62Mbps and AT&T's 90.82Mbps. T-Mobile also led in fastest upload median speeds with 12.19Mbps, with Verizon coming in second at 9.98Mbps and AT&T at 8.06Mbps.
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by PCMag's parent company, Ziff Davis.