T-Mobile US Inc. and Nokia Oyj today announced a landmark $3.5 billion deal to build high-speed 5G wireless infrastructure in the United States.

All three major U.S. carriers are currently in the process of upgrading their networks to 5G, a set of technologies that promise to enable vastly improved connectivity for consumers. It’s estimated that 5G infrastructure will be capable of providing speeds 10 to 100 times faster than today’s 4G carrier equipment.

T-Mobile will implement the technology in phases. According to Bloomberg, the carrier intends to start by rolling out 5G in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Las Vegas early next year. Nokia will be the supplier for the initiative.

There are lot of different aspects to the deal. Nokia will supply T-Mobile with products from its AirScale series of radio communications products and AirFrame data center equipment line, plus related software. The Finnish firm will top it all off by providing professional services to help the carrier implement these technologies.

In a joint announcement, the companies detailed that the project is set to cover two types of 5G. T-Mobile’s network will support connections at frequencies of 600 megahertz, a spectrum band used by current wireless infrastructure, as well as the far more powerful millimeter band. It’s the latter frequency range that will facilitate the biggest connectivity improvements for consumers.

T-Mobile and Nokia hail their new deal as the biggest 5G agreement to date. Both companies stand to gain a lot from the transaction.

For T-Mobile, it represents in a big step forward amid the efforts of bigger rivals Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. to build their own next-generation networks. As for Nokia, the transaction provides a needed boost following a few weak quarters it has blamed on sluggish 5G adoption among carriers. Now that T-Mobile has taken the plunge, others might follow suite with their own large-scale 5G deals.

“We are all in on 5G,” T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray said in a statement. “Every dollar we spend is a 5G dollar, and our agreement with Nokia underscores the kind of investment we’re making to bring customers a mobile, nationwide 5G network.”

The 5G pieces are falling into place over on the consumer side as well. Chip makers are hard at work developing new networking components to let phones and other devices interface with tomorrow’s networks. Just last week, Qualcomm Inc. unveiled two penny-size 5G antenna units that are set to begin shipping in handsets early next year.

Photo: T-Mobile