T-Mobile is only the fourth-largest carrier in the United States, yet they’re expanding their 4G coverage like madmen, with some reports saying 300 million Americans will have it by the middle of this year.
How are they doing it? How much is it costing them?
When I looked into providers, I was looking between virgin mobile and t-mobile. The problem with t-mobile is they have good coverage in densely populated areas, but once you leave those areas coverage drops to 1g or 2g. So I chose virgin which gave better coverage in the boonies.
I’m not sure if TMobile is expanding outside the large metro areas or not with this plan.
I certainly hope they’re moving to rural areas. I have T-Mobile and live in a rural area, but have stuck with it knowing they’ll be covering my area eventually. I hope.
Interestingly T-Mobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, based in Bonn, Germany and Virgin by Liberty Global, based in London.
Supposedly, every place that currently has the Edge network is getting upgraded to LTE.
I’m hoping, too.
ETA: The Edge to LTE conversion is supposed to be complete by March 2015.
T-Mobile got $4B from AT&T a couple years ago. That’s paying for at least part of the LTE build up.
USA virgin mobile is owned by Sprint.
T-Mobile may be using ATT’s network in parts of the country, given that both use GSM technology. I think many of the smaller mobile operators buy bandwidth from the big companies.
What? Sucking so badly? I’ve asked myself that question more than once.
Their CEO, John Legere, is considered a bit odd and a braggart.
The real expense is in putting up the towers in the first place. Once those are in place, the equipment upgrades are – well, let’s not use the term “cheap” but considerably less expensive.
if you’re looking for the best coverage, unfortunately Big Red (Verizon) is the way to go. I switched from them to Sprint and have been kicking myself in the ass ever since.
This true. When I visit my sister, who lives in an adjacent state, I’m on the ATT network. Kinda sucks, because the ATT service is for calls only, no data. I have to buy “roaming data” from T-Mobile if I want more than the pittance of roaming data I’m allotted.
T-Mobile’s parent company says T-Mobile is unsustainable:
What is SNM Weekly? I’ve never heard of the publication.
Some kind of bizarre business news startup. None of its writers have been there more than eight months.
I’d like to see confirmation of the story about T-Mobile from some more reliable news source.
Here’s the actual interview piece. He’s not saying T-Mobile is unsustainable. He’s saying its current spending is.