T-Mobile announces Galaxy S 4G, first device capable of fully utilizing 4G

T-Mobile currently only has two phones capable of taking advantage of its HSPA+ "4G" network, the myTouch 4G and the G2, but on Thursday the carrier announced the first phone to be able to support the network's theoretical maximum speeds.

Today, as part of the carrier's 4G expansion that is expected to include 25 new consumer devices this year, T-Mobile and Samsung announced Galaxy S 4G, which could be the next 4G smartphone T-Mobile will offer.

Greater details about the device were not provided today.

The interesting part of the Galaxy S 4G announcement Thursday was that T-Mobile revealed that the Galaxy S 4G will actually be the first smartphone it offers capable of the network's theoretical 21 Mbps peak downlink speed. T-Mobile has rolled out its 4G network capable of these speeds in approximately 100 major metropolitan areas, and completed its overall network upgrade at the end of 2010.

At CES 2011, however, T-Mobile USA CEO and President Phillipp Humm announced the company's plans to double the speed of its HSPA+ network to a theoretical maximum of 42 Mbps.

This upgrade will only be available in 25 major metropolitan areas by mid-2011, and the company doesn't expect to have any devices that can utilize the upgrade until the second half of the year.

But T-Mobile today did not announce pricing or availability for the Galaxy S 4G. so as the company stands at this very moment, it has promised its users future speeds up to 42Mbps, but it has yet to deliver anything even approaching 21Mbps.