T-Mobile Acquires Spectrum from VZW; T-Mo CEO Calls AT&T's New Offer 'desperate'

[dgstorm]

T-Mobile made some big waves in the mobile carrier industry last year. It now looks like they are fired up to continue that trend. First, in a huge move that will finally start giving them some real power in the industry, T-Mobile announced they finalized their deal to buy 700 MHz A-Block spectrum from Verizon Wireless at a cost of over $2.3 Billion. This new spectrum will improve their network coverage inside buildings and some rural areas across the United States. It primarily will improve coverage for 158 million people in cities including New York, Dallas, LA, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, and Washington D.C. T-Mobile already owns A-Block spectrum in Boston, but this new spectrum will offer them low-band spectrum in nine of the top ten and 21 of the top 30 markets in the US. This network improvement is something that other carriers (especially AT&T) might be concerned by, because it effectively puts T-Mobile on a more even playing field than before.

That's not the only new wave T-Mobile is making this year. T-Mobile's CEO, John Legere, went out of his way to taunt AT&T for their new $450 carrier switching initiative. He called their move "desperate" and hinted at even bigger announcements from T-Mobile very soon. Here's a quote with his statement,

This is a desperate move by AT&T on the heels of what must have been a terrible Q4 and holiday for them. I'm flattered that we have made them so uncomfortable! We used AT&T's cash to build a far superior network and added Un-carrier moves to take tons of their customers - and now they want to bribe them back! Consumers won't be fooled...nothing has changed; customers will still feel the same old pain that AT&T is famous for. Just wait until CES to hear what pain points we are eliminating next. The competition is going to be toast! ~ T-Mobile Newsroom

Ouch! Legere even teased AT&T about how he spent AT&T's "break-up" money from the failed merger. That's definitely rubbing salt in the wound!

Source: T-Mobile Press

 

[johnomaz]

TMobile can't really call it desperate when they are offing (or will be soon) to pay the early cancellation fee for customers to come to TMobile. That is just as desperate IMO. Though it is still something that can be touted as a 'customer keeper' so people stop going to other carriers by AT&T.

 

[Caesars]

This will allow consumers to get the product that works best for them . As a consumer this makes me happy that companies are easing the insane etf fees, hopefully consumers will adopt all the new "pay more up front" businesses models.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[akhenax]

Here's to the day when the device makers will construct phones that are carrier agnostic. int: