T-Mobile Takes the Cake - Best US Mobile Network
T-Mobile just announced it surpassed Verizon in having the best mobile network according to Ookla. The results were backed by half a billion real world tests on millions of devices and shows T-Mobile's growth from under-dog to best-in-class network performance in less than a decade. During the livestreamed event T-Mobile really pushed against Verizon, and to a lesser extent AT&T, highlighting key competitive advantages and value offerings.
The Un-carrier announced it surpassed both Verizon and AT&T in speed and experience based on Ookla's speedtest results. Key highlights below:
More Towers: Over 82,815 towers, 10-15% more than Verizon, providing better coverage. More towers = better coverage and connections.
Best Spectrum: More spectrum (at least 30% more than Verizon and 40% more than AT&T) with the lowest frequency within each band, allowing signals to travel further. The layer cake strategy (especially through the Sprint merger) provided these key spectrum assets.
Most Advanced Network Technology: T-Mobile rolled out its 5G standalone network core in 2020, covering 300m POPs compared to Verizons 200m, is significantly ahead of competitors. This enables features like six-carrier aggregation and network slicing, exemplified by their priority network for first responders. In a recent event, T-Mobile described AT&T's FirstNet responder network as Gen 1, while T-Mobile had Gen 2.
Other key announcements made:
T-Satellite Initiative: T-Mobile announced the commercial launch of their T-Satellite service on July 23rd. Developed with Starlink, aims to eliminate wireless dead zones across 500,000 square miles of US territory not covered by terrestrial networks. There are 657 satellites in orbit and T-Mobile claims to be well ahead of competitoes. The beta program had nearly 1.8 million users, with tens of thousands coming from AT&T and Verizon. Initially, it supports MMS messaging and later on October 1st, data services will be introduced for apps like mapping, music, T-Life, and weather services. T-Satellite will be included in the Experience Beyond and Go5G Next plans and available for $10/month for other wireless customers, including those from AT&T and Verizon. T-Satellite is a great feature that distinguishes T-Mobile from Verizon and AT&T, especially when data services will be up and running.
Magenta Status & DashPass: Magenta Status is expanding with a new partnership with DoorDash. T-Mobile customers on most popular plans (Experience More, Experience Beyond, Go 5G, Magenta, and T-Mobile One) will receive a free DashPass subscription, valued at $10/month ($120/year). DashPass offers $0 delivery fees, savings on service fees, potentially saving customers hundreds of dollars annually. This benefit starts on July 8th. While I don't personally have never used DashPass, I do get UberEats credits and see the value and convenience DashPass can bring. DoorDash already has over 20m DashPass subscribers. Plus, DashPass has its own streaming subscritions like Max (with adds) offered for free. I reached out to PR to confirm this is viable.
Easy Upgrade for Verizon Customers: T-Mobile is introducing "Easy Upgrade," allowing Verizon customers to switch by paying off their old phone and providing a new flagship phone in return (e.g., iPhone 16, Galaxy S25, Pixel 9) on T-Mobile. This is a very aggressive offer by T-Mobile and will further help their port ratios from Verizon. Since the Un-carrier now can claim it has the best network it will be strongly going after Verizon customers that may have had painpoints with its 5G rollout (as they went with mmWave first) and connection speeds.