Samsung’s latest flagship phone is one of the first to tap into new spectrum being deployed by the US carrier.

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Samsung announced the Galaxy S9 and S9+ yesterday, but the news for T-Mobile subscribers doesn’t stop there. It turns out the new Galaxy phones support team magenta’s new 600MHz band 71 LTE. So if you’ve got your heart set on taking advantage of the frequency’s extra coverage and penetration in the coming years, then the S9 and S9+ are your best bet right now.

T-Mobile is offering credits on trade-ins too, with half-off the S9 or $360 off the S9+. The carrier hasn’t specified which phones are eligible for the rebate, which are spread out as monthly bill credits. Sprint, too, will offer up to $350 in trade-in rebates for S9 and S9+ customers.

T-Mobile will begin Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ preorders on March 1 at 9:01 pm PT, with in-store availability from March 16. The Galaxy S9 will be $30 per month for 24 months on the T-Mobile Equipment Installment Plan, with $0 down and 0-percent APR; in the end, you’ll pay $720. The Galaxy S9+ will also be $30 per month on the same plan, but with a $120 downpayment; in total, you’ll pay $840. They’ll be offered in Lilac Purple, Midnight Black, and Coral Blue.

While T-Mobile has improved the speed and coverage of its networks over the past several years, the carrier still has significant gaps in rural parts of the nation, and still lags behind Verizon and AT&T on total nationwide coverage. The 600 MHz spectrum will allow T-Mobile to even the field. The company began using the airwaves last year and now covers 738 cities and towns across 30 states.

The Galaxy S9 isn’t the first to tap into the 600 MHz band — that honor belongs to last fall’s LG V30. But the V30 wasn’t a big seller, and the Galaxy S9 will likely mark the first phone that gets broadly adopted to take advantage of T-Mobile’s big coverage boost.

The Galaxy S9 and V30 won’t be alone for long. T-Mobile said it plans to launch more than a dozen phones with the capability this year, ranging from budget devices to superphones.

Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/how-the-samsung-galaxy-s9-marks-a-big-coverage-boost-for-t-mobile-mwc-2018/