Back in February, T-Mobile announced that it would begin using unassigned portions of the 5GHz spectrum to offer more bandwidth and coverage to its customers. The company called this 'LTE-U,' and said that it would start rolling out to customers in the spring. Well, it's a bit past spring, but we're now starting to see LTE-U go live in select cities.

T-Mobile says LTE-U is working in parts of Bellevue, WA; Brooklyn, NY; Dearborn, MI; Las Vegas, NV; Richardson, TX; and Simi Valley, CA. The feature will arrive in more locations, "later this year." Of course, you'll need a phone with the required hardware and software to utilize LTE-U, and right now only the Galaxy S8/S8+ is compatible.

In addition, T-Mobile announced that it had completed the first test of License Assisted Access (LAA) in Los Angeles. LAA combines the 5GHz unlicensed band (that LTE-U uses) and licensed spectrum to deliver a performance boost for users. T-Mobile says that the test resulted in a download speed of 741 Mbps, but the company isn't ready to roll that out just yet.

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