T-Mobile isn’t just sitting by the sidelines while AT&T tries to win approval for its controversial buyout.
Instead, it’s business as usual for the carrier as it just announced two new handsets slated to launch on the company’s 4G HSPA+ 42 network.
“Our research shows almost every U.S. consumer wants a smartphone,” said T-Mobile chief marketing officer Cole Brodman at the GigaOM Mobilize mobile conference this week.
To appeal to that wide market, the service provider will launch the Samsung Galaxy S II and the HTC Amaze 4G on October 12.
T-Mobile’s 4G network is similar to the pseudo-4G network originally offered by AT&T, but the difference is T-Mobile has actually worked to strengthen the technology and offer speeds that are competitive with rivals like Sprint.
AT&T, meanwhile, is working on replacing its 4G structure entirely and building a new network based on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, which has made Verizon the fastest 4G operator on the market right now.
Both the Galaxy S II and the Amaze 4G will run on Android 2.3. The latter will also be NFC compatible, allowing the phone to be used as a virtual credit card in stores.
Both phones will be in the $230-$250 range for customers who sign up for a new two-year service agreement.
It seems like the AT&T merger isn’t slowing down T-Mobile one bit. The only thing that seems uncertain as a result of the proceedings is T-Mobile’s ability to land the iPhone. With Sprint rumored to be picking up the device this year, T-Mobile will be the last major player with no iPhone love, but that may be because Apple expects it to be rolled into AT&T.
However, with the batch of lawsuits and regulatory trouble AT&T has faced over the last month, the deal seems far from an open-and-shut case.
