T-Mobile crows about its 5G market position in anticipation of Apple’s iPhone 12 launch

While nowhere near as flamboyant or as combative in his public statements and appearances at events like the Goldman Sachs Annual Communacopia Conference as his predecessor, recently retired CEO John Legere, Mike Sievert rarely misses a chance to highlight his company’s competitive advantages over bitter rivals Verizon and AT&T.

Of course, Magenta’s Legere-succeeding skipper is generally more careful than his forerunner not to overpromise and underdeliver in a field as challenging as 5G network development, especially during a global pandemic that threatens to slow down said development for quite a bit longer.

The US wireless industry’s Verizon/AT&T duopoly seemed impossible to fracture for the longest time, but by combining the nation’s third and fourth-largest cellular networks, the “new T-Mobile” managed to climb to the market’s second place almost instantly, topping Ma Bell in the overall subscriber department as of August, or a measly four months after the long-in-the-works merger was finalized.

Instead of resting on its laurels, the “Un-carrier” is unsurprisingly going after Big Red’s crown now, attempting to pull off a similar feat as the one achieved by Verizon back at the dawn of the 4G LTE era. This time around, T-Mo is significantly better positioned than its competition to deliver by far the best network experience thanks to its nationwide low-band 5G foundation, and more importantly, the extensive mid-band spectrum acquired from Sprint.

Said spectrum is still in the process of being redeployed and added on top of the aforementioned low-band 5G layer to enable huge speed upgrades on a much larger scale than what Verizon will ever be able to offer using exclusively mmWave technology. 

Despite massive obstacles faced as a result of COVID-related restrictions and lockdowns, T-Mobile started that network integration process with a bang back in April, quickly ramping up its efforts en route to having “thousands of sites” up and running by the end of the year with a combination of low and mid-band 5G speeds.

In case you’re wondering, the number of cities and towns currently covered by a mid-band T-Mo 5G signal still sits below 100, so you can probably imagine the kind of work it will take to bring that in the “thousands” in just a few months. If you can’t imagine, Neville Ray’s words paint quite the picture, as Magenta’s Chief Technology Officer says his company is upgrading around 700 sites a week on average right now to support mid-band spectrum for “eight to 10 times the speed” available on 4G LTE and low-band 5G.

By the way, 40 of the “major metro areas across the US” are apparently included in that list of “thousands” of places where mid-band 5G will be available this year, so it’s certainly no wonder that T-Mobile sees itself as “way out in front” of its top rivals in the 5G arena, a seemingly bombastic claim that many analysts fully agree with.

While the “Un-carrier” is arguably shining brighter than both Verizon and AT&T in terms of service value and device promotions already, it’s no big secret that Apple’s impending iPhone 12 family release could mark a major turning point for the 5G industry as a whole.

T-Mobile fully plans to be in the limelight when that happens, taking advantage of its privileged market position to “put offers out there” that competitors “just won’t be able to match.”Although it’s obviously far too early to know exactly what Sievert means by that, we’re definitely excited by the prospect of any and all iPhone 12 launch deals Magenta might have in the pipeline.

Keep in mind that all four members of the iPhone 12 family are widely expected to come with 5G connectivity, but the 12 Pro Max could be the only one of the four to support all three 5G flavors, blazing fast mmWave included. That’s yet another reason why T-Mo is likely to benefit greatly from the fast-approaching commercial debut of the iPhone 12 lineup, as the top layer of its 5G cake remains arguably its number one weakness in the battle against Verizon.

With the cheaper versions of Apple’s next big thing all but guaranteed to sell like hotcakes after the incredible success of the “standard” iPhone 11, the sky is the limit for the customer gains Magenta could report in the near future as it seeks to deliver the “best network and the best value simultaneously for the first time in history.”