T-Mobile CFO Braxton Carter says 2016 was a year of “incredible growth and valuation” which sets the stage for 2017. Both he and CTO Neville Ray hinted at a big company announcement coming yesterday from Las Vegas, promising it would be both disruptive and innovative.
Speaking at CES on Thursday, T-Mobile President/CEO John Legere and COO Mike Sievert announced the next phase of the company’s “Un-carrier Movement” and unveiled moves aimed at eliminating what they say are some of the worst customer pain points in wireless today. The execs said T-Mobile is putting an end to “crazy” monthly fees and added taxes, giving consumers the power to change the price they pay, and even putting money back in their pocket for unused data.
T-Mobile’s LTE footprint now reaches 3 million in the U.S., compared to zero three years ago. It has 251 million low-band customers and is on-track to complete its Chicago deployment this year.
“We think we’re responsible for AT&T and Verizon improving their network. If you look at downlink and uplink speeds combined, we’re ahead, said Ray at the Citi 2017 Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday. “We are locked into breaking the paradigm of one number on one device.”
The carrier will be focused on advancing speeds of its LTE network for much of the next decade. Some 70 percent of its network spectrum is committed to LTE. As for 5G, Ray says the carrier is testing and working with OEMs in the millimeter wavebands.
As for potential new opportunities from the incoming administration, Carter hopes for a lighter regulatory touch on telecom. T-Mobile’s geographical expansion “means we’re creating jobs in the U.S.”
January 6, 2017
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