Earlier today, T-Mobile announced its Un-carrier 1.0 initiatives as part of the proposed “New T-Mobile” — the combination of T-Mobile and Sprint that was just formally approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and may launch in 2020.
Before that happens, though, T-Mobile wanted to try and address some of the questions and complaints that have been leveled against the potential merger between the two wireless carriers. More than anything, T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere, wanted to show those out there watching what type of company it will be after the merger, and how it plans on trying to make a positive difference on the market, consumers, and just about everything in between that T-Mobile can have an impact on.
To get there, T-Mobile is calling its first major Un-carrier effort “5G for Good”, but it’s important to note that most of the biggest efforts T-Mobile wants to do is reliant on the merger with Sprint actually going through. If/when that happens then the “New T-Mobile” can start rolling out these giant initiatives.
Before that, T-Mobile needs a worthwhile 5G network. The carrier has been rolling out the advanced mobile network for quite some time now, but it’s big push into the technological improvement will come on December 6 when it launches its 600 MHz 5G network. This will be nationwide coverage, one of the goals that T-Mobile has been focused on for months now.
Legere says that the carrier’s 5G network will eventually cover 200 million customers across the United States. And by 2024 the download speeds will reach up to 450 Mbps — or 10 times faster than its current 4G LTE speeds. And as far as devices go, T-Mobile’s 5G network will support Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10+ 5G and the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G — with more devices coming in the future.
But that’s not all. As I said above, this was about what T-Mobile plans to do if the Sprint merger is allowed. As such, the Un-carrier is basically swinging for the fences here with some impressive efforts, both in helping first responders and underserved families across the United States.
Connecting Heroes Initiative
This is built for first responders. If the Sprint merger goes through, then the carrier says it will offer free 5G service to first responders for the next ten years. It will be available for state and local public and nonprofit EMS, law enforcement, and fire agencies across the United States. Sign-ups are currently available for those agencies to get on the list, basically, and if everything goes according to plan the New T-Mobile will roll out availability starting next year.
Legere says this can put upwards of $7.7 billion back into the budgets of these agencies if all of them sign up, which is money that can be used to roll out better pay for first responders and provide better equipment.
It will all be dependent on the merger with Sprint, though. And if the New T-Mobile network doesn’t offer coverage where some first responders are located, then the initiative won’t be available.
Project 10Million
T-Mobile wants to close the “Homework Gap” in the United States by bringing internet access to millions of households across the country. To do that, the New T-Mobile has introduced “Project 10Million”.
Project 10Million, an unprecedented 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;
Through a commitment of $10 billion, the New T-Mobile will bring free internet access to millions of households for five years. An additional $700 million commitment is reserved for hardware to 10 million households. The families that sign up for the initiative will be provided with 100GB of free internet access each year for five years. The plan also provides access to certain tablets and smartphones that have their costs covered by the New T-Mobile, and free mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.
Project 10Million customers will also have free availability of 5G service. And, again, this is all dependent on the merger with Sprint getting the green light.
Finally, we have…
T-Mobile Connect
This is T-Mobile’s answer to competition, aiming to drop the price point of its already cheapest plan even more. The T-Mobile Connect plan will cost a customer only $15 per month. It will offer 2GB of high-speed data access, along with unlimited talk and text. And for the customers who happen to use more data on a yearly basis, T-Mobile has an answer for that, too:
And because we know that customers use more data every year, T-Mobile Connect will also have an innovative Annual Data Upgrade to give customers an additional 500MB of data per month, every year, for the next five years! This is the first plan that automatically gets bigger and bigger – every, single, year
Those are the big announcements from T-Mobile today. Pretty impressive, right? Still, there are issues worth raising regarding T-Mobile’s planned acquisition with Sprint, just starting with the fact that –despite the fact DISH Network wants to launch a mobile network– it will reduce primary competition from four carriers to just three. But T-Mobile is pushing ahead with this, and Sprint’s been reader for a merger with just about anyone for years now.
And with the FCC formally approving the merger just recently, it certainly looks like this is going to go through.
If you’re a Sprint customer, are you excited about this merger?