Well, it’s about time, but I finally had a little spare time, so I enabled LTE on my phone. I’ve only tested it in a few locations but it works better than the “older” T-Mobile HPSA+ (which they call “4G” but everyone else scoffs). HPSA+  has not been bad in the Portland area. But in many cities it is not even a close second. T-Mobile’s transition to LTE is needed to gain some customers. 

LTE is more symmetrical and I, on one test, got UPLOAD speeds in the 13 million bits per second range. The download was busy (too many customers online) and was around 2 million bps. Download started in the 15 Mbps range, but throttled down each second of download. I suspect this throttling down goes away at  two in the morning.

The best phone coverage is Verizon and the best data coverage is AT&T and T-Mobile is competing on cost and open pricing with no contracts.

Their goal is to rip off as many AT&T customers as possible and they make it easy to do with unlocked phones and straight pricing.

It was no child’s play to “root” the phone (gain access to root-level commands) and install a different radio driver to work with LTE. I can’t say I recommend it for the average user, as it requires a somewhat complicated list of instructions. I made several non-productive attempts until I got it right. As it turned out, the instructions didn’t work, and I tried alternate methods until one worked. And this was dealing with the simplest, most fool-proof method.

Could I do it again in an hour? Probably. Did it take more than a day the first time? Yes. If your time is worth anything to you, just buy a Galaxy S4 or Note 2 or Note 3 if you’re on T-Mobile or AT&T.

I’m as much interested in HOW things work as possessing something that works. So this is just trying to keep up with technology.