T-Mobile started off the year with a huge bang, reporting a record first quarter, adding over a million new customers, when one of its major competitors suffered a huge loss. And while it looks to set the bar even higher this year with its new plans, the wireless carrier has now shared news that it has set a new record when it comes to upload speeds achieved in a commercial scenario.
T-Mobile announced the news through its own website, sharing that its 5G Advanced network was able to peak at 550Mbps when it comes to upload speeds. This is quite a huge accomplishment, since upload speeds are just as crucial, having an impact on video streaming, online gaming, and more.
The Un-carrier network is evolving
Perhaps what’s most important about this new achievement is that it wasn’t achieved in a lab setting, but was done at a “commercial
site” in Seattle. When it comes to the specifics, T-Mobile shared that it was able to achieve this using a “sub-6 GHz spectrum, using 3GPP Release 17 UL Tx Switching.”
If you’re not really sure what that all means, T-Mobile explains that the technology used “provides smart multiplexing to maximize user throughput on the available device Tx chains by optimizing the use of UL Carrier Aggregation and UL MIMO for TDD and FDD spectrum.” The carrier also used hardware supplied by MediaTek that featured an M90 modem.
Of course, the important thing to note here is that you shouldn’t expect this kind of speed in your neighborhood — at least not immediately. But if you want to give it a try, you’ll need a phone equipped with the M90 modem, and hope that it also offers support for Releases 17 and 18, which doesn’t really leave too many options.
The good news is that T-Mobile is utilizing 5G Advanced on its network nationwide, which means better internet speeds and connections no matter where you are in the US. So far, T-Mobile has shown that it’s looking to get a bigger piece of the wireless pie in 2025, and has already laid out the groundwork for that to happen. So it will be interesting to see just how things progress in the next few months.
