T-Mobile just made its largest investment ever by spending nearly $8 billion(!) to acquire 45% of the FCC’s available 600MHz low-band spectrum that was up for auction. This is the type of spectrum that penetrates buildings better and also reaches further from a tower, which in turn gives wireless customers a better overall experience no matter where they are. This is a huge day for T-Mobile customers and those in markets that have questioned whether or not T-Mobile could keep up with Verizon and AT&T.

See that map at the top of this post? That’s what T-Mobile says their LTE network will look like by the end of 2017. They’ll do that with this new spectrum purchase and by moving into new LTE markets. For those of you in areas that T-Mobile isn’t even offered, you should probably get ready for it – Magenta is coming.

Of course, we’ll need phones that can utilize this new spectrum and I’m not sure there are any at the moment. Companies like Qualcomm will have to built out support in their modems and then push them into phones. T-Mobile thinks that’ll happen this year, though I’m skeptical it will be that quick. I’m hoping they prove me wrong, though.

Either way, T-Mobile just made a huge investment in its future network that will actually allow it to fully compete with Verizon and AT&T. Not only that, but those two are heavily invested in 700MHz, whereas this 600MHz spectrum is fresh and untouched as can be. That could mean an even faster experience without congestion for some time.

T-Mo customers, good stuff, right?