T-Mobile's First LTE Smartphones Might Launch March 27

Information leaking out of T-Mobile indicates that this telecom is going to introduce its first round of smartphones with 4G LTE near the end of next month. There will be several Samsung handsets with Android, as well as one of the latest BlackBerrys.

T-Mobile has had a 4G network based on HSPA+ for some time, but all of its top rivals use the even faster LTE standard, and so T-Mobile has been working to catch up. The carrier has yet to give any specific date on when its going to start bringing its LTE network online, but March 27 is a good possibility.

That's the date a number of LTE-enabled smartphones are supposedly going to be introduced. Specifically, these are the BlackBerry Z10 and the Samsung Galaxy Exhibit. T-Mobile is also allegedly going to introduce a version of the Samsung Galaxy S III with LTE on March 27, or a week later.

T-Mobile has already publicly committed to introducing the Z10, so this isn't a surprise. And the telecom already  offers a version of the Galaxy S III with 4G HSPA+, and adding an LTE version is reasonable.  However, not much is known about the Galaxy Exhibit, other than its likely to be a follow-up to an older Android model already in T-Mobile's lineup. 

Another Possibility

Sprint went through this same process last year when it was bringing its own LTE network online. It chose to introduce LTE-enabled devices before the network was actually available. If T-Mobile does the same, then March 27 might not be the day the telecom makes its nascent LTE network accessible by customers.

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