Over 20 years ago, when the time came for me to pick a wireless provider, I wanted the carrier that had the best coverage and was the most reliable. Back then, the choice was easy. Verizon was more expensive than the rest, but you would get what you paid for. With two children, I wanted to make sure that I’d be able to get in touch with them whenever I called. In 2005, Verizon had the best wireless network in the U.S.
The T-Mobile of 2005 had absolutely no resemblance to the T-Mobile of today. Led by the EDGE platform, dubbed 2.5G, it would be another three years before T-Mobile customers would get to experience the huge speed increase and improvement in features available with 3G service. The man who would be considered T-Mobile‘s savior when he became president and CEO of the company 10 years later, John Legere, was in the process of turning around Global Crossing. The latter is a multinational telecommunications company that was coming out of bankruptcy.
T-Mobile wants the public to realize that Verizon no longer has the best network in America
T-Mobile‘s advertising campaign back in 2005 did not call
T-Mobile the “un-Carrier as that name would debut under Legere. The carrier did focus its advertising on teens due to the success of
T-Mobile‘s Sidekick device. The Sidekick II was released in 2004, and in 2006 the Sidekick 3 was launched. The device had a swiveling screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and integrated instant messaging and email capabilities. As a messaging device, the Sidekick was a huge hit.
On the opposite side of the spectrum was Verizon, whose network was considered the most reliable with the fewest dropped calls. However, Verizon‘s plans were more expensive than T-Mobile‘s. Back in 2005, if you wanted to have your phone connected to the most reliable cell service, you signed up with Verizon and paid more for that reliability. Verizon was considered to have the best wireless service in the U.S., a title it owned for many years.
Legere was named president and CEO of T-Mobile in September 2012 and he immediately helped to turn around T-Mobile with his splashy, pro-consumer un-Carrier announcements. The first one, announced in 2013, got rid of subsidized phones and two-year contracts. In 2016, T-Mobile announced the T-Mobile Tuesdays customer reward program, which has been a huge hit with customers. Another un-Carrier perk gave subscribers free Netflix streaming.
Legere’s brash comments knocking the competition also caught the attention of young consumers who were soon moving to T-Mobile in droves. By August 2020, T-Mobile, at one time dead last among the four major U.S. carriers, was number two behind only Verizon.
A poor decision made by AT&T and Verizon and a brilliant one made by T-Mobile turned around the U.S. wireless market. Verizon and AT&T decided to start building out their 5G networks with millimeter wave spectrum (mmWave), the airwaves that deliver the fastest download data speeds. But what Verizon and AT&T didn’t take into account is that mmWave airwaves only travel short distances. This could prolong the time and expense of building out their 5G networks.
T-Mobile had a different plan and that was to use mid-band spectrum to build its 5G network. While mid-band 5G isn’t as fast as mmWave, it is still much faster than the low-band 5G used for nationwide 5G networks. While mid-band spectrum may not travel as far as low-band, it travels longer distances than mmWave. As a result, T-Mobile decided to build out its 5G network using mid-band spectrum which became known as the Goldilocks of 5G.
It just so happened that there was a place where T-Mobile could buy a ton of 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum, perfect for 5G. It didn’t come cheap, and it wasn’t easy. But when T-Mobile purchased Sprint for $26.1 billion, the transaction included a large amount of 2.5GHz spectrum that T-Mobile used to build out its 5G network.
T-Mobile has been officially named “The best network in America”
Officially named by Speedtest as the best network in America, it was time for T-Mobile to let the public know that Verizon no longer owned that title. T-Mobile recently ran a television commercial that starts by acknowledging the past and promoting the current. “For years, everyone thought Verizon had the best network. Because they did,” starts the ad. But the commercial points out that according to “some fancy experts, that title now belongs to T-Mobile.”
Current T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert recently made it clear during a recent earnings call that T-Mobile is going after Verizon subscribers. If those who signed up with Verizon because it had the best network in America at one time start switching to T-Mobile because it now has the best network in the U.S., it might not be much longer before T-Mobile does something that seemed impossible years ago, which is to surpass Verizon and become the nation’s top wireless carrier.
