T-Mobile CEO Promises to Overtake Sprint in 2015

Tmobile still has the worst LTE coverage in the USA. And the 3g is just as bad. Look in central IL only thing they have for most of it is 2g.

Get a few million more people down there and they might consider it. It's not worth investing in places like Central IL.

Yeah I'm well covered between Boston-NYC-PHL-DC. Have only had good (4G/HSPA) to great (LTE) coverage here and the interstates in between. $17.50/mo per line (paid for phones in cash). Unlimited talk + unlimited txt + 2.5GB data per line.

I just drove down from Hartford to Atlanta (I-84 to I-81, I-77 then I-85). Had far better coverage than I expected and even LTE in areas that would otherwise appear rural and unpopulated. I think Pandora or Google Music only lost data for maybe 15 minutes of the entire trip.

Actually, there are HUGE areas of EDGE and no service less than 2 hours from NYC and Boston. AT&T and Verizon have LTE virtually everywhere. T-Mobile is not a viable competitor to the big two.

Population payback ! Cover more people and slowly expand where people are not... this is a calculated moved and it's not in line with how they are doing business right now.

What's the deal in Fisher? Service literally surrounds ya but the village itself is a dead zone.

thats easy its tmobiles way of saying they dont have service in our area. If you look other towns in central IL are like that. I tried to get service in champaign at the tmobile store they would not sell it to me. They said you have no home coverage. They altered there map to make it look like they dont. Friend was out at the house he had 2g coverage but it did work.

True, GLIMMER, agree. And, I am a Central Illinois TMO customer also.

If an aspiring national cell phone carrier cannot provide both CALL/DATA coverage for 100% of every mile on Illinois' I-80, I-74, I-72, I-70, I-57, I-55, & I-39, they are NOT a truly national carrier! VZ and AT&T manage to do it. Neither Sprint nor TMO currently do that.

And, to ArrayList, if you don't want Central Illinois to have cell coverage, good luck when you drive through here!! Illinois has the 2nd most Interstate Highway mileage of any US state.

For a reasonable TMO 2015 goal, I would challenge John Legere to have complete call/data TMO coverage(even if they have to have roaming agreements) for every mile of every US Interstate highway.

Even if it's slightly less coverage, it's really more because their network performs better than anyone elses. When you factor in that it's unlimited, and fucking smokes, twice as fast as Sprint at least, and nearly on par with Verizon and AT&T or better.

The fact that it's unlimited and they don't give two shits about usage on their best tier basically makes it a win.

*uploads some stuff at 3mB/etc faster than my home connection without fear of caps*

T-Mobile is possibly overly ambitious because Sprint's got Spark Turbo and Spark coming online, plus carrier aggregation, plus VoLTE, plus 800MHz, plus more micro cell Spark for even more speed and stuff. Only time will tell if Sprint's Spark is deployed thick enough tho. Select regions will find Sprint to be the master of the domain if so. Plus roaming partners. Sprint might end up the new T-Mobile in terms of quality if done right, with better coverage, by the end of 2015..

you say there network is better come to central IL and say that. The BS numbers they are putting out are a joke. true number just tested on my nexus 6 here in a place tmobile choses not to serve. 41.78/9.57. Thats not bad for a town of 1200

I get 50Mbps down and 24Mbps up in a town of a few hundred thousand. T, mo.

Is that rate for tmo or someone else?

50/10 ain't bad. ain't as good as I like tho, with tmo and their 30Mbps upload.

o_O..

btw, Tmos' saying that by mid-2015, all their in network 2G should be upgraded to LTE. so that is supposed to turn a lot of towns that previously had no 3G or LTE into LTE.

That's there nice party line. They have no spectrum to update with here. As for those speeds those were on ATT

Well actually, they have 3 AWS blocks and a PCS block in your area. Plenty to run GSM, HSPA+ and LTE with. Not saying they will cover your area, but they certainly could if they wanted to.

The entire network is going LTE+Expanding, its a work in progress and should be done within a year I believe. In MN I get LTE in very rural areas now where there was only edge or nothing before. I can get 60-70MBps pretty consistenly as well on LTE in the upgraded areas.

Still find it amazing that WALMART has held onto the FAMILY MOBILE (powered by T-Mobile) in rural areas that don't even have T-Mobile coverage.
WalMart dumped SPRINT here because of lousy coverage, but I can't understand why they've held onto T-Mobile . . . . sketchy voice coverage, and EDGE/GPRS for data...

They don't even have EDGE or GPRS in many areas. And the 2015 plans they are proudly proclaiming to the world don't specifically address that.

Are you in Nashville?
I have T-Mobile in the Pittsburgh area and love it.
Over the holiday I was in Nashville and got 4G with no issues.

I know it has been said before, but T-Mobile is awesome in populated areas - rural they just do not have coverage. It is expensive to cover a large area with very few people and makes sense, to me, to get the most people covered and then gain rural areas. It means I get great coverage with a lower price as long as I stay away from the sticks.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I visited my parents in Moberly, MO. T-Mobile had non-stop LTE coverage from STL -> Columbia, MO on I-70. LTE dropped back to Edge/3G for about 15 miles in between Columbia, MO and Moberly MO on US 63. However, Moberly, population ~13,000 and definitely rural had TMO LTE. They live about 3 miles north of town and LTE was still available.

While I'm sure they have a long way to go in rural areas, if they cover your area they currently offer the best value. Their LTE network is fast and I was able to take advantage of their $100/two line genuine unlimited offer this month. I now have three unlimited lines on TMO for $167/month (includes all fees/taxes and bullshit government corporate welfare).

I've read about Sprint making some noise with genuine unlimited plans at reasonable prices but they've historically been in last place in terms of coverage for STL.

Forgot to mention my 11 year old, who pays for his own phone (as do all three of my kids) also signed up for their $30/month pre-paid plan that provides 100 mins of voice, unlimited texts and 5GB of data. He's happy. (While I could add him to the family plan for $40/more, he'd have to split the total bill with his brothers and me and with taxes/fees it would be more like $50/month.)

I don't know if I would consider a city of 13k definitely rural.

Technically its on the small end of an "urban cluster" but it's farm country. There used to be coal mining a long time ago and the railroad had a presence but other than service jobs there's not much else. Orscheln calls it home but they have little competition for labor and take advantage of it. I'm shocked TMO has good coverage there. To reach the holy grail of 300m POPs covered, adding 13k doesn't move the needle.

WM likely dumped Sprint because their 2G/3G nets are almost always overloaded from MVNO traffic.

...adequate coverage in our area. Yeah, I know very typical of TMO everywhere. Sad because I really want to give VZW the proverbial middle finger.

Sprint is turning on 800LTE and that will change. Sprint's issue is that they only have 100M population covered with 800LTE, which they plan to complete by end of 2015. When that hits their entire footprint, they will exceed Tmobile in depth as well as breadth. But even if Sprint is clearly better by end of next year, they still have to deal with the poor image.

This is just user reported but gives an _indication_ how much more breadth Sprint has than Tmobile...
»www.sensorly.com/map/4G/ ··· 10sprint

Tmobile..
»www.sensorly.com/map/4G/ ··· coverage

But Sprint's network will ultimately rely heavily on 2.5 Ghz. They have not said what they will do in areas where they own insufficient or no 2.5 Ghz at all. They also have areas where they lack 800 mhz band 26.

Understood, just saying Sprint really needs to address coverage first and 800 will help in most of their footprint (except along Canada/Mexico border cities). 2500 will be necessary for capacity and they'll be expanding that as well. They claim they'll have 800 in most of their footprint by end of 2015 and 2500 will be used wherever they need more capacity.

They may have to increase cellsite density where they can't do 800 but even so, they'll significantly pass up Tmobile in coverage and depth on avg when they complete 800 where possible.

This is what Sprint looks like in an area covered with 800/1900/2500...

»Here is what Sprint CAN be when they complete 800/2500 rollout

You parrot the 800 LTE all the time. 800 LTE won't fix sprints data woes. Most of the people I talk to leave Sprint because of the slow data, not the coverage. Sprint has coverage in the boonies, even if it is just 3G. I've never had voice issues with Sprint. It's all data.

Sprint will continue to bleed subscribers until they fix their network. And apparently that won't happen cause if you look at Softbank, lots of people are talking about how Softbank is the worst carrier in Japan, especially in Tokyo, where the data is also crawling slow.

You can keep beating that old Sprint drum if you want, but they are not addressing the issues with their network.

800LTE is faster than 3G and improves chances of getting LTE, people leave because they may only get 3G. So yes, 800LTE clearly does help improve many issues - I don't think Softbank has a lower band in Japan.

I'm not beating the drum for Sprint as I acknowledge they still have issues and have been very critical of them in other posts for not doing enough sites in a Spark market. I would not recommend Sprint until they get 800LTE most everywhere they can. They won't fix their issues until getting 800LTE to fix coverage gaps (and more 2500 for capacity as needed). That's not beating a drum, that is simply understanding what they need to do and it's based on analysis...

»Here is what Sprint CAN be when they complete 800/2500 rollout

Verizon & At&t will not react seriously to T-Mobile until they actually have a reason to do so. Both companies have well over 100 million subscribers and counting.

tmobile has no contracts, charging customers taxes and fees is just about the same thing as post paid... you get the extra billing aftertaste?

something tmobile forgot in it's bid to get more customers is that thing customers like to call more money in their wallets (in addition to better coverage/QOS)... the bottom line price stupids! also, if you look at the metro pcs offers they are typically more stingy (limited LTE data allowances) than straight talk/net 10 offerings or even that of cricket..

does a 10gb bucket with rollover help? not really how about getting the real deal of unlimited LTE without all the throttling. build a REAL damn network.. and buffer it with wifi where necessary.

the problem with t-mobile is there coverage SUCKS!!!!

I just switched from Verizon to T-mobile. Service has been great and I am very happy.

I recently recorded a 70 megabit download on my smartphone from their Wideband LTE service.

Happy TMO customer for more than 7 years. Their LTE is much faster- especially the upload speed- than my ATT U- Verse.

I have to switch from Sprint to T-Mobile some time in the New Year. My employer is booting me from the companies Sprint plan because they pay for data I do not use (hard to use something that does not work well in my area). So I figure I'll go back to T-Mobile where I started unless they change their mind and leave me be for a while. I really want to upgrade from my iPhone 4S to the non-existent iPhone 6S. I have only been interested in the "S" models and am willing to wait until it is released either this spring or next fall.

I moved to T-Mobile on 12/24/2014. I had been with Verizon Wireless for more than 10 years. Paying over $300 for 4 lines, 1400 minutes for all 4 lines and unlimited text, 3 lines on a grandfathered unlimited data plan and only 2Gb on the 4th line.

Having teenage girls and not wanting to pay overages or constantly being behind them to watch their usage, I emailed Verizon Wireless executives and made my demands. I wanted a 4th line on unlimited. After 3 years of buying my own devices unsubsidized, I wanted 4 new phones for only $50 each. The note 4, 2 Galaxy S5 and an Iphone 6 and I wanted to keep my current grandfathered in plan.

Got an email to call their executive office and talk to someone. She said they can do the phones for that price but could not add a forth line with unlimited. As a matter of fact I would loose my unlimited data on all lines if I took the phones at the discount.

I told her that we had nothing to talk about then. Since the keeping and adding a 4th unlimited was my main concern. She said ok bye bye.

With T-mobile I get 4 lines all with unlimited everything, no throttling, and only pay $199. I get to use my Verizon phones with T-Mobile. 2 Galaxy S4's and 2 Iphone 5C's.

Ported all 4 numbers to T-Mobile and it was completed in 1 day.

I still would buy my phones unsubsidized, but I'm saving over $100 a month with no fear of overages.

The service is not as strong with T-Mobile. With Verizon I was getting data speeds in the low to high 20's. With T-Mobile I'm getting mid to high teens. I can live with that if I'm saving over $100 a month. I can see no difference when using my phone. Plus I get 5gb of tethering included. WOW!!! The voice and texts are the same. No change that I or my family can detect. No complaints.

Very happy with T-Mobile and glad I made the change to them.

I gave Verizon a chance to keep me as a customer and they blew it.

T-mobile has won already. Sprint has terrible coverage.

I thought T-Mobile was worse than Sprint for coverages? My family went from T-Mobile to Verizon Wireless in this rural area.. I know a cable technician's Sprint phone didn't work. :/