Even though T-Mobile is the last major U.S. carrier without the iPhone, it’s still trying to improve its network to lure in users with unlocked Apple handsets. The company announced, on its blog, that it’s bringing enhanced coverage and faster speeds for unlocked iPhone users in three metro areas. The enhancements are part of T-Mobile’s $4 billion network improvement plan. Washington D.C.: Alexandria, Va.; Arlington, Va.; Chevy Chase, Md.; Falls Church, Va.; Laurel, Md.; McLean, Va.; and Silver Spring, Md. Baltimore: Glen Burnie and Towson, Md. Houston: Cypress, Jersey Village, Humble, Kingwood, and The Woodlands. T-Mobile customers in Las Vegas and Kansas City, Mo. have already seen the improvements. The company is also working on the networks in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York metro area, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle. And the improvements seem to be more than just talk. In internal testing by T-Mobile, an unlocked iPhone 4S running on its HSPA+ network averaged 70 percent faster download speeds than the same handset running on AT&T’s network. And unlike AT&T, T-Mobile also has unlimited data plans. Interestingly, any mention of the iPhone was recently removed from T-Mobile’s marketing of the “unlocked and unlimited” plans. But it seems that the fourth-largest carrier still wants to bring in unlocked iPhone users from AT&T.

AT&T has announced that they will spend $14 billion over the next three years to upgrade their wireless and wireline IP broadband networks. The investment plan, Project Velocity IP, will support growing customer demand for high-speed Internet access and new mobile, app, and cloud services.

According to Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer:

This is a major commitment to invest in 21st Century communications infrastructure for the United States and bring high-speed Internet connectivity — 4G LTE mobile and wireline IP broadband — to millions more Americans.

Once fully implemented, Project Velocity IP is expected to bring:

• 4G LTE network expansion expected to cover 300 million people by year-end 2014
• Wired IP broadband network expected to expand to 75 percent of customer locations in AT&T’s 22-state wireline service area by year-end 2015
• Fiber deployment expected to reach 1 million additional business customer locations, covering 50 percent of multi-tenant office buildings in AT&T’s wireline service area by year-end 2015
• 99 percent of customer locations in wireline service area expected to have high-speed
• IP Internet access via IP wireline and/or 4G LTE

As a longtime AT&T customer, I’m thrilled by this news. It is nice to see the nation’s second largest cellular company making the commitment.