T-Mobile USA has finally announced its 3G strategy, well after all of the company's national competitors have launched 3G service. Parent Deutsche Telekom will spend $2.7 billion to build out the network which is thought to be based on UMTS/HSDPA. Work is scheduled to begin in this quarter and finish up in 2009, though with most of the upgrade being complete in 2008.
The $2.7b figure is on top of the $4.2b T-Mobile spent at the AWS spectrum auction (some of that spectrum will be used in the build out), so the total upgrade cost is quite significant. Executives are hoping to be able to increase subscribers by 50% over the next 9 years and 3G is thought to be a big part of that effort.