LAS VEGAS—LTE may be fast, but it’s come slowly to T-Mobile, the last major US carrier not to run a 4G LTE network. That’s due to change in “a week or two,” T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray said.

“Markets such as Las Vegas are pretty ready, and we were trying to get Vegas launched for CES. Another week or two and we’ll be there,” he said.

The Vegas launch will be followed by “a series of LTE markets coming on line through Q1 and Q2,” Ray said. The company is aiming to cover 100 million people with LTE by midyear and 200 million by the end of the year, if its merger with MetroPCS goes through.

There’s one thing missing from the mix, though: T-Mobile doesn’t sell any phones it advertises as LTE compatible. “There will be a period when markets are up but we don’t have devices yet,” Ray admitted.

Some existing T-Mobile and AT&T LTE devices may work on T-Mobile’s new LTE network, though. “The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 can be an over-the-air software update” to work with LTE, Ray said, and “some AT&T LTE phones will work on the network, so there will be customers that can experience the LTE network,” he said.

Ray didn’t say whether T-Mobile’s upcoming iPhone would support LTE, though.

LTE Is The Future

T-Mobile has had the luxury of delaying LTE because its existing HSPA+ 42 network is quite fast. In our Fastest Mobile Networks 2012 tests, we found that T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 42 network had download speeds faster than Verizon’s LTE network in several cities.

But HSPA+ 42 is slow for uploads, and the world is moving to LTE. While HSPA+ 42 may be the end of that technology’s evolutionary path, LTE is just getting started, with future upgrades promising speeds of hundreds of megabits per second.

Verizon Wireless currently leads in the LTE rollout race with over 400 cities covered. AT&T covers 135, and Sprint covers 49.

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