Late last week we learned T-Mobile USA was not going to be the fourth major wireless carrier of the iPhone in the U.S. Instead, a smaller regional carrier, C-Spire (formerly Cellular South), took the coveted spot. Naturally, the sure-to-come bandwidth onslaught means C-Spire will need to upgrade their networks. And upgrade they are.
The carrier has announced a massive 238-cell site upgrade costing over $10 million spanning 61 cities and 65 counties throughout Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, in an attempt to increase network coverage and data speeds for the upcoming iPhone launch (and smartphones overall). The $10 million is in addition to a previously announced $90 million upgrade from last month which highlighted among other things, thousands of miles of fiber and enhanced backhaul connections to cell sites.
Besides the upcoming iPhone, C-Spire is prepping their network for a big LTE rollout scheduled to begin before the close of 2011, and even include support for Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) — a notable first as VZW doesn’t even have said feature available to the public yet.
For wireless customers located in the southern states covered by C-Spire Wireless, the iPhone game just got a lot more interesting.
We’re interested to hear from current C-Spire wireless customers as to how coverage really is (outside of PR speak) as well as real-world data speeds. Shoot us an email at tips[at]Gadgetsteria[dot]com.
Source: Business Newswire | Via: ConnectedPlanet
