T-Mobile boosts 5G speeds in over 80 extra cities

T-Mobile has moved beyond claims of providing 5G nationwide to offering more subscribers a meaningful speed boost over their existing LTE service.

The carrier has started rolling out mid-band 5G (that is, 2.5GHz) in over 80 additional cities and towns, a huge jump over the eight cities that received upgraded coverage in April. Many of these are smaller cities like Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Camden, New Jersey. Still, that makes the faster coverage considerably easier to find than it was in the past. You can see the full list below.

The expansion comes thanks in no small part to Sprint’s 5G frequencies and promises a middle ground between T-Mobile’s slower-but-reliable low-band data and the fast-but-finicky millimeter wave access available for some AT&T and Verizon customers (disclaimer: this author also writes for Verizon-owned Engadget).

See also: Everything you need to know about T-Mobile 5G service

T-Mobile is promising peak speeds of 1Gbps and average speeds of 300Mbps, both well above realistic LTE speeds. The 2.5GHz service doesn’t reach quite as far indoors as low-band 5G, but it’s much better at overcoming obstacles than mmWave 5G (which can fail even if there’s a window in the way). A 2.5GHz cell site also covers a much wider area.

“Thousands” more cities and towns will get mid-band service by the end of 2020, T-Mobile said.

While T-Mobile technically has the largest 5G footprint of all US carriers, this 2.5GHz access effectively represents the true deployment for many customers. So long as its performance claims hold up in practice, you now have a more substantial incentive to upgrade to a 5G phone. The timing is appropriate, too. Devices like the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and upcoming iPhone 12 are arriving just as T-Mobile’s faster 5G becomes available, giving you a better reason to buy a new handset that can make use of the speedier wireless data.