T-Mobile USA recently completed an eight-city spectrum-interference study (click here to check it out) with the goal of convincing the federal government to relinquish a massive chunk of bandwidth that--if all goes to plan--T-Mobile might use to build an LTE network. And though T-Mobile still faces a range of challenges in its bid for the spectrum (and may not even use it for LTE) the situation does give the carrier yet another option in its efforts to maintain equal footing with rivals in the mobile broadband game. Article

T-Mobile USA continues its aggressive rollout of HSPA+, announcing that the network now covers more than 85 million people in 50 major metropolitan markets.

In June, T-Mobile announced it had HSPA+ coverage in 25 major metro markets. The operator plans to cover 185 million people in 100 major markets by the end of 2010.

In conjunction with the roll out, T-Mobile also introduced the webConnect Rocket 2.0 USB laptop stick with an updated form factor to its first HSPA+ capable device. The operator said 16 of its current 3G devices, including more than a dozen smartphones, will benefit from the higher data speeds provided by HSPA+ but they aren't HSPA+ enabled. T-Mobile also confirmed reports that its first HSPA+ smartphone will be released later this summer but didn't provide any additional details.

Earlier this month, the blog TMoNews, indicated the nation's No. 4 carrier also plans to double the peak download speed of its HSPA+ network to 42 Mbps in 2011. The blog, which cited a picture taken at a T-Mobile managers meeting in Seattle, indicated T-Mobile hopes to stay ahead of the rest of the wireless pack by increasing the speed of its network through software upgrades. The picture shows a chart with T-Mobile ahead of "VZ LTE" (presumably Verizon Wireless' (NYSE:VZ) planned LTE network), WiMAX from Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) and "AT&T 14.4."

The newest HSPA+ additions include: Austin, El Paso, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Waco, Texas; Baltimore; Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La.; Birmingham, Ala.; Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, Ohio; Ft. Lauderdale and Jacksonville, Fla.; Greenville, S.C.; Honolulu; Indianapolis; Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo.; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Portland, Ore.; and Wichita, Kan.

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Related articles:
T-Mobile expands HSPA+ to 25 markets, will call it '4G'
Rumor Mill: T-Mobile will launch HSPA+ Android phone in September
Rumor Mill: T-Mobile punching up HSPA+ to 42 Mbps in 2011

How much anticipation is there for the Boxee Box, which was supposed to ship in June but has been pushed back until November? An off-the-cuff iPhone video of a product designer and the STB's shell that was intended to be shared with "friends and family" of the company made it onto the Internet and sparked a wave of news reports that the box was possibly shipping soon. Check this out

Swedish telecom operator TeliaSonera said it added 19,000 IPTV customers in the quarter ending in June, and grew subscriber ranks by some 131,000 for the 12-month period to 842,000 customers in all markets at the end of the second quarter.

TeliaSonera said more than a third of its broadband users subscribed as well to its pay-TV option.

The operator reported its second quarter earnings today, saying it had seen a net decrease of 1.7 percent in sales to $3.66 billion, but an increase in net profit for the quarter of 17 percent to $706 million, adding that some of its markets that had been worst hit in the recession were showing signs of recovery. Its operations span Northern Europe, Russia and Turkey among other regions.

"Eurasia continued to deliver double-digit revenue growth due to improved macroeconomic conditions in key markets such as Kazakhstan and we maintained or improved our market positions in all Eurasian countries," said president and CEO Lars Nyberg. "In the Baltic countries, some early signs of recovery can be seen in Estonia, although the majority of the improvement can be ascribed to higher equipment sales. The Nordic countries continue to benefit from strong growth in mobile data and within Broadband Services, TeliaSonera launched a version of the popular Spotify music platform through the digital-TV services in Sweden and Finland."

Nyberg said encouraging trends early in the year prompted the company to increase its investments in the second quarter, especially in Eurasia, and that the company would also continue to push fiber and IP in Sweden.

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