T-Mobile
USA is testing an HSPA+ network on its 1900 MHz PCS spectrum at San Francisco’s
Moscone Center, where Apple will hold its World Wide Developer Conference
(WWDC) next week.

In
a statement, T-Mobile said the test network was deployed as part of a routine
network upgrade inside Moscone Center and timing ahead of Apple’s event was
purely coincidental. The network would allow attendees with an unlocked
AT&T iPhone to use T-Mobile’s test network with one of the carrier’s
prepaid data plans.  

T-Mobile
reports that it has over 1 million iPhones on its network already. As part of
its $4 billion network modernization initiative, the company plans to refarm
its 1900 MHz PCS spectrum, currently devoted to 2G customers, for use in
deploying an HSPA+ network that would welcome a more diverse group of unlocked
devices onto its network. 

The
company has said it hopes to have that network rolled out in a number of
markets by the end of the year.  

Without
actually offering the iPhone as part of its portfolio, the question of the day
for T-Mobile has been how to attract new customers without Apple’s iconic
device.  

During
a first quarter earnings call, CEO Philipp Humm stressed that 45 percent of T-Mobile’s gross customer additions were unsubsidized,
SIM-only customers who bring their own devices to the network.

To
add some perspective to how bleak T-Mobile USA’s fourth quarter 2011 customer
losses were, consider that the loss of 510,000 branded contract customers in
the first quarter was in fact a 28 percent improvement sequentially. 

Apple’s
WWDC runs from June 11-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Google will hold
its IO developers conference at the same location less than two weeks later,
from June 27-29.