T-Mobile Thursday teased the kinds of public service projects it can accomplish if its planned merger with Sprint happens. It plans to turn on 5G on December 6, laying the foundation for the new T-Mobile’s network if the transaction closes as expected in 2020. At the same time, the company is preparing for a December court date with states that want to stop the merger.
The company pledged to begin what it’s calling the Connecting Heroes Initiative, a 10-year commitment to provide free 5G access — unlimited talk, text and smartphone data — to every first responder at every public and non-profit state and local police, fire and EMS agency across the country. More than 75 percent of fire chiefs describe budget limitations as a top challenge, according to the telecom. “Participating first responders will always have the highest priority of any plan on T-Mobile’s network no matter how much data they use,” CEO John Legere told reporters Thursday. First responders can sign up here.
The company also announced Project 10Million, a new program designed to eradicate the homework gap that exists for millions of children by offering free service and hotspots and reduced cost devices to 10 million households around the U.S. over five years; and T-Mobile Connect, a prepaid service offering that will bring a new competitive $15 per month prepaid option — half the price of the lowest T-Mobile plan today — to everyone, especially lower-income consumers.
T-Mobile also pledged to create five new Customer Experience Centers, including building new facilities near Fresno, CA, Kansas City, KS, and Rochester, NY.
“Everything we announce today is consistent with the values of the New T-Mobile. We have initiatives in these areas at smaller scale,” T-Mobile President/COO Mike Sievert told reporters.
Legere was asked why the company was announcing the initiatives before the deal was final. He replied: “I hope we answered the one big question. No, we’re not going to be the same [after the merger] and we’re really going to take it to the competition. We have been preparing for the New T-Mobile, so we figured we’d get going.”
While the DOJ and FCC approved the transaction with conditions, several states seek court action to block the deal, calling it anti-competitive. Legere called the lawsuit filed by the states “unprecedented in one way,” because they took action before the regulators ruled on the deal. “We’re prepared for litigation on December 9 with the states who want to block the deal,” he said. He emphasized some states left the lawsuit by creating their own transactions with T-Mobile and said: “We’re talking with others.”
November 12, 2019
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