The LG V30 will lead the way for T-Mobile's expansion of coverage in rural America.
It may not be at the top of the list of high-value features, but when the comes to the U.S. later this year, it will have one thing no other phone does: support for LTE over Band 71, also known as 600MHz.
, which it obtained in a drawn-out auction that ended this summer, obtaining 45%, or 31MHz, of the total. As a result, it now has plenty of headroom to compete with Verizon and AT&T in rural parts of the U.S. — traditionally T-Mobile's weakest coverage areas. Low-band spectrum, in which 600MHz is categorized, can travel further and penetrate through buildings better than mid- and high-band spectrum, which is where most of the company's LTE network is concentrated.
The V30 continues LG's legacy of being first to support new wireless bands
That the V30 is the first phone to support Band 71 is no coincidence: its predecessor, the V20, was the first to support Band 66, an extension of the AWS band that gave T-Mobile additional LTE capacity in urban areas. Most new phones now integrate Band 66, as they will Band 71 as they're released. Earlier this summer, T-Mobile's CEO, John Legere, promised phones from LG and Samsung that would support 600MHz spectrum, but the Galaxy Note 8 will be released without Band 71 support; instead, another Samsung phone announced later this year will likely have it.
T-Mobile said that it has already lit up 600MHz support in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and will continue to roll out coverage in "rural America" throughout the year; cities in Wyoming, Northwest Oregon, West Texas, Southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, Western North Dakota, Maine, Coastal North Carolina, Central Pennsylvania, Central Virginia and Eastern Washington will also have Band 71 support by the end of the year, increasing T-Mobile's nationwide coverage by six million customers to 321 million.
It may not be at the top of the list of high-value features, but when the comes to the U.S. later this year, it will have one thing no other phone does: support for LTE over Band 71, also known as 600MHz.
, which it obtained in a drawn-out auction that ended this summer, obtaining 45%, or 31MHz, of the total. As a result, it now has plenty of headroom to compete with Verizon and AT&T in rural parts of the U.S. — traditionally T-Mobile's weakest coverage areas. Low-band spectrum, in which 600MHz is categorized, can travel further and penetrate through buildings better than mid- and high-band spectrum, which is where most of the company's LTE network is concentrated.
The V30 continues LG's legacy of being first to support new wireless bands
That the V30 is the first phone to support Band 71 is no coincidence: its predecessor, the V20, was the first to support Band 66, an extension of the AWS band that gave T-Mobile additional LTE capacity in urban areas. Most new phones now integrate Band 66, as they will Band 71 as they're released. Earlier this summer, T-Mobile's CEO, John Legere, promised phones from LG and Samsung that would support 600MHz spectrum, but the Galaxy Note 8 will be released without Band 71 support; instead, another Samsung phone announced later this year will likely have it.
T-Mobile said that it has already lit up 600MHz support in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and will continue to roll out coverage in "rural America" throughout the year; cities in Wyoming, Northwest Oregon, West Texas, Southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, Western North Dakota, Maine, Coastal North Carolina, Central Pennsylvania, Central Virginia and Eastern Washington will also have Band 71 support by the end of the year, increasing T-Mobile's nationwide coverage by six million customers to 321 million.