T-Mobile US plans to cover 200 million people with its 5G network by the end of this year, using 600 MHz spectrum. The “Un-carrier” said it has been working towards the launch of 5G using 600 MHz for the past two years, and will be deploying 5G-ready equipment for both indoors and outdoors.

To date, T-Mobile US has thousands of 5G-ready towers and cell sites capable of lighting up 5G on 600 MHz spectrum, and no other 5G signal will be as strong or as reliable for broad coverage. That means T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network will be able to cover more people in more places and work indoors and out, unlike the competitors current 5G networks which can be blocked by things like walls, glass and leaves.

T-Mobile says their 5G network operating on 600 MHz spectrum is just the start of the journey to 5G and provides a critical low-band foundation. Together with Sprint, the New T-Mobile will have the ability to add critical depth with mid-band spectrum for broad coverage and performance as well as mmWave spectrum for hotspot-like coverage in dense urban areas. Only this combination will deliver a 5G network with both breadth and depth, something the carriers simply cannot do as quickly. The stakes are high for the U.S., as billions in economic growth and jobs are expected to come from 5G and the innovations it will unleash.

Observation: By deploying 5G on low band spectrum this year, T-Mobile US will be well ahead of AT&T, which has recently promised to launch 5G on its unspecified low band spectrum (probably 700MHz) by the middle of 2020.

T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray said in April that the Un-carrier would provide speeds of 60 Mbit/s to 70 Mbit/s using 5G in the 600MHz band. He said that would be roughly double the speeds the operator currently provides on its 600MHz spectrum with its 4G LTE network.

Mike Dano of Light Reading had this to say about T-Mo’s 5G on 600 MHz announcement:

T-Mobile’s lowband 5G network won’t provide speeds anywhere near the 1 Gbit/s peak speeds that Verizon is providing with its 5G network over millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum. Nor are those speeds nearly as fast as the roughly 500 Mbit/s peak speeds that T-Mobile is already providing on a mmWave 5G network the operator launched this summer in parts of six cities.

However, the key element of T-Mobile’s launch of 5G in its 600MHz spectrum is that it will reach across major portions of the US population. That’s because transmissions in 600MHz spectrum can cover large geographic distances, while transmissions in mmWave spectrum can’t go more than a few thousand feet. The tradeoff, though, is capacity and speeds: mmWave 5G can handle enormous amounts of data, while lowband 5G can’t.

Once again, we warn readers that none of the spectrum that’s being used for pre-standard (IMT 2020) commercial services have been approved by the ITU-R for 5G.  That will only happen after WRC 19 has concluded as per this recent WRC 19 Preview article.  Also note that mmW 5G will require line of sight transmission and many more small cells due to limited reach so will be restricted to dense urban areas.

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