T-Mobile Lights Up NYC With HSPA+

T-Mobile today announced a small expansion of its HSPA+ network. It is now live in the trial market of Philadelphia, and is now live in New York City and parts of New Jersey.It isn't the biggest expansion ever, but the small increase in T-Mobile's HSPA+ footprint is welcome, indeed. T-Mobile said that portions of New York City, New Jersey and suburban Washington, D.C., now have access to the faster 3.5G network, which will permit for faster downloads and uploads of data over the wireless network.

T-Mobile said that it's HSPA+ network will cover 185 million Americans across 100 markets by the end of the year.

HSPA+ is capable of pushing data downstream at 21Mbps, which is far and above what some of the current 3G networks are capable of.

Right now, only a few select devices will be capable of reaching these speeds, but T-Mobile has promised that more are on the way. The bests device is its webConnect laptop dongle for wireless Internet. T-Mobile hasn't said when devices such as smart phones will be able to access the full speeds of this new network improvement.

HSPA+ is the last 3G tech that will be deployed on GSM networks before Long Term Evolution takes over.