T-Mobile recently spent a ton of money at an FCC auction to secure as much of the new 600MHz frequency as possible. They actually won more than any other wireless carrier which participated at said auction and it will go a long way to improve the current coverage they have around the United States. Sadly, current smartphones do not support this new frequency since the modem integrated in the SoC needs a new antenna, but it has been confirmed it will be supported by the unlocked LG V30.
While T-Mobile has already began activating its 600MHz network, it's only available in limited locations right now. Availability should continue to expand though as the company has plans throughout 2017 and 2018. So it's one of those times where T-Mobile customers will want to look into buying a smartphone that supports it so they can use that new frequency as soon as it goes live in their area. For some though, it was presumed that only the T-Mobile variant of the LG V30 would support this new frequency.
This had come as a disappointment to those who preferred the unlocked version of LG's devices. LG devices sold by T-Mobile have a history of being developer friendly but that changed with the LG G6. You could unlock the bootloader of the LG G6, but they completely removed fastboot commands (other than lock and unlock) so there isn't a way to install a custom recovery on it through traditional means. LG's new unlocked variants though, come with support for all US carriers and has been receiving official unlock methods through LG's website.
So it was great news when we heard directly from T-Mobile that not only would the unlocked variant of the LG V30 support all US carrier bands, but that it would also support T-Mobile's new 600 MHz (LG band 71) right out of the box. For anyone in the US who wants a developer friendly version of the LG V30, it looks like this unlocked version (LG V30 US998) will be the one to get. Read more by checking out XDA Recognized Contributor ChazzMatt's original post in our forums!
Thanks for the tip ChazzMatt!