T-Mobile has confirmed to The Verge that it will forgo a planned network upgrade to 84Mbps (from the current theoretical 42Mbps) in favor of its move to a “true” 4G LTE implementation — although it sounds like certain markets that would have seen a bump this year will now have to wait until the 2013 LTE rollout to benefit from increased throughput. Apparently both scenarios require the so-called refarming of 2G bandwidth into the 1900MHz PCS spectrum — giving Magenta an even more compelling message for pulling away dissatisfied AT&T iPhone owners once their contracts expire.

T-Mobile has found itself in a tough fourth place position in the US wireless industry, with the recent breakup of a proposed sale to AT&T leaving the company in what would appear to be an uncertain position going forward. Combined with Sprint’s addition of the iPhone to its lineup, T-Mobile had a lot of factors weighing against it, which caused subscriber churn to hit unsustainable levels in the fourth quarter last year. The Deutsch Telekom subsidiary hopes that its Challenger strategy combined with a faster network and presumably better devices will allow it to prosper in relatively tough conditions.

Source: The Verge