It’s time for another magenta refresh, rather some new additives, as T-mobile’s Un-Carrier 7.0 event is starting live here in just a few minutes. Last time Un-Carrier 6.0 brought us music freedom and the two week trial run to test T-Mobile’s network called Test Drive, completely free of charge and without any obligations. What could Un-Carrier 7.0 have in store for us this time? The event started like previous Uncarrier events, where CEO John Legere talks about current stats and growth thanks to past Uncarrier and plan changes, filled some great one liners and hilarious quips. We all know how Legere feels about Sprint, and his comment today during the event “That new guy from sprint is big and I’m scared of that guy,” says everything. Of course he also makes a joke about AT&T and their exclusivity on the Amazon Fire Phone, calling it the Fire Sale phone which seems about right after the price drop to $0.99. T-Mobile has had some awesome growth with last month in August being their absolute best month ever with 2.75 million post ads.
Rumors had already been buzzing around that T-Mobile could be bigger than Sprint by the end of the year, and from the way things have been going it isn’t entirely out of reach. Legere also stands behind that reality and made a statement that they will be bigger than Sprint by the end of the year. Here’s how T-Mobile is going continue towards accomplishing this on their “data strong network.” It has a lot to do with the network as a whole, and VoLTE is a big part of that. T-Mobile’s Wideband LTE is already in 17 markets, and they’re adding more and more spectrum all the time to give more capacity to their customers. T-Mobile is investing billions into their network to grow and add to their footprint, and by next year we’ll start to see plenty of those changes.
Today’s Uncarrier 7 is the next phase of T-Mobile’s plans, and the first thing coming into play is the next generation of T-mobile’s ever popular WiFi Calling and texting, which will seek to enable high-quality HD voice, fast call setup times, fewer dropped calls and seamless voice coverage between T-Mobile’s nationwide Voice over LTE (VoLTE) network and Wi-Fi with compatible smartphones. T-Mobile is the first company to intriduce the ability to had off phone calls from VoLTE to WiFi hostspots, and the iPhone will be the first device to handle this capability. Every phone will work wifi enabled out of the box embedded into the device without an app. T-Mobile is also offering every customer the chance to pick up a phone that carries this capability by allowing customers to trade in their old phones with a price guarantee for a device that has this WiFi calling feature built into it so they can start taking advantage of the new WiFi Calling unleashed. As of now, T-Mobile is letting us know that every single WiFi hotspot just became a T-Mobile cell phone tower, and frankly we embrace it. Bring on the coverage. T-Mobile is also partnering with GoGo in flight WiFi for the ability to send text messages for free to anyone on flights. That’s literally with no extra charges and no fees. When they say anyone, they mean anyone, although the flight does have to be equipped with GoGo in-flight WiFi.
T-mobile is building even more on network coverage with the new personal CellSpot in home router which customers can use to boost their coverage in home. Legere makes a note that this isn’t just a regular router and that it “does something special,” but the idea is that it will boost your coverage in home. If you’re someone that could take advantage of the CellSpot, there’s a $25 refundable deposit and that’s basically it. You have to have at least one device available on a post paid plan to get the device for free with the deposit, but if you subscribe to a T-Mobile prepaid plan, the cost is $99. For anyone that has ever been in area where coverage isn’t the greatest but is near a WiFi hot spot, you should be able to appreciate the scope of this announcement. Are you a current T-Mobile customer and do you already use WiFi calling?
