T-Mobile just unleashed a flurry of news at CES: The company’s popular Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan is going contract free tomorrow, it’s launching a new program to bring 4G wireless to laptops and tablets, and it’s also the first U.S. carrier to launch HD Voice for clear calls.

Oh, and it has also partnered with Major League Baseball to power a new on-field communication system. Whew.

First launched last September, T-Mobile says its Unlimited Nationwide 4G data plan has been a smashing success, attracting nearly 46 percent of new subscribers last month. Starting tomorrow, T-Mobile is going to make the plan even more appealing by offering it for $70 a month with no contract.

Such a move could help T-Mobile stand apart from AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which have both moved away from unlimited plans. But it’s hard to say if it will be enough to stem T-Mobile’s subscriber bleed. T-Mobile remains the only U.S. carrier without the iPhone, which has led to some dismal earnings for the last several quarters.

T-Mobile is also launching “4G Connect,” an effort to equip more laptops and tablets with 4G access. The program will kick off on a few Windows 8 laptops and Ultrabooks, including the Dell Inspiron 14z and HP Pavilion dm1. The amount of free data on every device will vary, but T-Mobile says you’ll be able ot get up to 200 megabytes of free monthly 4G service when you pick up on of the 4G Connect computers. For additional data, you can choose from any of the carrier’s monthly plans.

HD Voice, which offers a significant improvement on call quality, has been flipped on for T-Mobile’s network today, the carrier announced. You’ll need a compatible 4G smartphone to take advantage of HD Voice, and it’ll only work with other HD Voice capable T-Mobile subscribers for now. But it’s still a major get for T-Mobile. For all of its competitors LTE network advancements, call quality hasn’t improved much.

T-Mobile also said that it has launched support for 1900 megahertz spectrum in Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Virginia Beach, which will allow unlocked iPhone owners to utilize the full speed of its network. The carrier now supports the iPhone-ready spectrum in 46 metro areas.

When it comes to its own LTE network, T-Mobile plans to kick off its coverage with Las Vegas in the next few weeks, the Verge reports. The carrier plans to cover more than 100 million people with its LTE network by the middle of the year.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Sprint customers looking forward to the iPhone 5′s improved call quality, prepare to be disappointed.

Sprint today has confirmed via Phone Scoop that its network is incompatible with the iPhone 5 version of HD Voice.

“HD Voice” is the buzzword given to wideband audio, a technology that improves audio quality over phones by extending the frequency range of audio signals. Sprint heavily pushed the technology as a part of its launch of the HTC EVO 4GE LTE and is working on rolling out the technology across its network.

AT&T and Verizon have already said their networks are incompatible with the iPhone 5′s HD Voice. In all, only 20 of 240 carriers worldwide will support the feature at launch, which goes to show how ahead of the curve Apple is with the technology. Maybe the iPhone 5 will be the kick in the pants carriers need to really get going.

We’ve reached out to Sprint for more details on the situation and will update this story when the company responds.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The HTC Evo One LTE 4G wasn’t the only major announcement Sprint had in up its sleeve today. The carrier also revealed that it will start rolling out HD voice service at the end of the year.

Basically the new HD voice service will deliver better call quality for Sprint subscribers.

The Evo One will be the first phone to work with the HD voice service, but since it’s launching in the middle of the year, it’ll be a while before Evo One owner get to use HD voice. Also, both participants in a call need to have HD voice compatible phones to take advantage of the higher quality — which severely limits the usefulness of the service.

Sprint said it will offer HD Voice in places where its 3G network is upgraded to the 1X Advanced standard. AT&T and Verizon, on the other hand, are waiting to deploy voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) service for high-quality calls on their 4G networks. Verizon and MetroPCS plan to launch their VoLTE services this year as well.

Honestly, it’s about time we see a significant bump in cellular voice quality. Smartphones have enabled all sorts of great mobile computing possibilities, but the basic ability to make phone calls hasn’t seen much improvement.

Via The Verge