T-Mobile 5G hype vs Craig Moffett: “We’re not in the 5G era yet”
T-Mobile US reported total revenues of $19.8 billion and service revenues of $14.2 billion in the last quarter. T-Mobile’s gain of 1.2M post-paid net additions was solidly ahead of Wall Street consensus of 1.0M, and was similar to last year’s pro forma gain of 1.3M. The company added 773K post-paid phone subscribers, dramatically better than last year’s pro-forma gain of just 104K, and blowing away consensus of 475K.
T-Mobile’s 773,000 postpaid phone customer additions during the first quarter handily beat AT&T’s 536,000 and Verizon’s loss of 178,000 customers, according to Walter Piecyk, a financial analyst at LightShed Partners. They continue to take market share. Their annual post-paid subscriber growth rate of 3.9% marks a sharp acceleration from the 2.7% growth rate reported last quarter.
T-Mobile has already migrated 20% of Sprint’s customers, and 50% of Sprint’s traffic (a doubling from
last quarter), to the much more robust T-Mobile network. The vast majority of Sprint customers
are already enjoying service benefits from access (even with legacy handsets) to T-Mobile’s
lower frequency spectrum bands.
T-Mobile: America’s Largest, Fastest and Most Reliable 5G Network Extends its Lead
- Extended Range 5G covers 295 million people across 1.6 million square miles, 4x more than Verizon and 2x more than AT&T
- Ultra Capacity 5G covers 140 million people and on track to cover 200 million people nationwide by the end of 2021
- Majority of independent third-party network benchmarking reports show T-Mobile as the clear leader in 5G speed and availability
- Network perception catching up to reality with a nearly 120 percent increase in consumers who view T-Mobile as “The 5G Company” since Q3 2019
Image Credit: T-Mobile
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On the company’s earnings call, T-Mobile US CEO Mike Sievert said that “discerning customers” are choosing T-Mobile’s new Magenta Max pricing plan, which offers few limits in the amount of 5G data that customers can consume. T-Mobile’s new Magenta Max customers consume 40% more data than its other 5G customers, and fully 70% more data than T-Mobile’s average 4G LTE customers.
“The take rate has just been amazing,” T-Mobile CFO Peter Osvaldik said of Magenta Max. “There are premium customers that are attracted to this premium network.”
“We’ve never been able to outrun the insatiable demand that customers have,” Sievert said of Internet service providers in general. “So when you provide the industry’s only true, unlimited plan, they do what they do, they use it up.”
According to Sievert, that indicates that T-Mobile’s 5G network will be a big winner. “We’re really starting to pull away from the pack. T-Mobile is positioned to maintain our 5G leadership for the duration of the 5G era.”
In a great example of braggadocio, Sievert said:
“We have again demonstrated that our unique winning formula and balanced approach enables us to grow share while delivering strong financial results. In our increasingly connected world, we recognize our role as stewards of this profitable company and industry, while continuing to use our Un-carrier DNA to bring change to wireless and broadband alike, to disrupt the status quo and ultimately benefit customers. And this quarter was no exception.”
T-Mobile said it now covers fully 140 million people with its 2.5GHz network, which it calls “ultra capacity.” By the end of this year, the company said that number will increase to 200 million people. Meantime, speeds available on that network will rise from an average of 300 Mbit/s today to up to 400 Mbit/s by the end of this year, the operator said. 5G speeds will continue to rise after that, according to T-Mobile’s network chief Neville Ray. “2022 is going to be even better,” he said.
Analyst Craig Moffett (who participated in the earnings call) put somewhat of a damper on all that 5G hype by stating: “But we’re not in the 5G era yet. We’re not even a year into the first generation of 5G iPhones. Less than 10% of Americans have 5G-enabled phones, and half of those probably only got a new phone because they needed a replacement. 5G isn’t really driving handset selection, or service provider selection, yet.”
“That T-Mobile continues to take share even in the twilight of the LTE era is reassuring. In a world of roughly comparable networks, they are competing on the basis of price alone… and they are taking share rapidly. In 5G, they will compete not only on the basis of the industry’s lowest prices, but also the industry’s best network. As we’ve said before, T-Mobile’s ‘worst to first’ story is a generational one. Networks don’t achieve advantage overnight, and they don’t lose it overnight, either. Ten and twenty-year cycles in telecom aren’t unusual.”
“T-Mobile’s brand, and its network, have been ascendant for years. But they have, up to now, achieved only parity. Their path to network superiority is potentially even longer, and, we suspect, even brighter.”
T-Mobile continues to increase market share even in the twilight of the LTE era is reassuring. In a
world of roughly comparable networks, they are competing on the basis of price alone… and they
are taking share rapidly. In 5G, they will compete not only on the basis of the industry’s lowest prices, but also the industry’s best network.
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References:
https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-reports-strong-first-quarter-2021-results
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/does-5g-make-difference-t-mobile-says-yes/d/d-id/769256?
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The Linux Foundation and NGMN Collaborate on End-to-End 5G and Beyond
San Francisco, USA and Frankfurt, Germany, May 10, 2021: The Linux Foundation and the Next Generation Mobile Network Alliance (NGMN), today announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for formal collaboration regarding end-to-end 5G and beyond.
NGMN’s mission is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user, placing a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Sustainability and Green Future Networks, as well as on 6G and the continuous support of 5G’s full implementation.
The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation
This mission is complementary to the efforts of the Linux Foundation’s LF Networking and LF Edge umbrella projects, as well as others like LF Energy operating within the telecom, IoT, and networking spaces.
Creating and providing open, scalable building blocks for operators and service providers is critical to the industry adoption of 5G and beyond. Therefore, the collaboration between NGMN and the Linux Foundation will focus on end-to-end 5G architecture and beyond 5G. Specific areas of alignment may include sustainability, network automation and network autonomy based on Artificial Intelligence, security, edge cloud, virtualization, disaggregation, cloud native, and service-based architecture, to name a few.
“We very much look forward to a mutually inspiring and beneficial collaboration with The Linux Foundation. Open Source is gaining increasing relevance for the strategic topics of our Work Programmes such as Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks and 6G. We are delighted to partner with The Linux Foundation to jointly drive our mission for the benefit of the global ecosystem”, said Anita Doehler, CEO, NGMN Alliance.
“We are thrilled to be aligning with such an innovative, industry-leading organization,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “Integrating NGMN’s expertise across pivotal areas like Disaggregation, Green Future Networks, cloud native, automation, and early work on 6G into LF Networking’s 5G Super Blueprint initiative is a natural next step for the industry.”
The Linux Foundation’s vision of harmonizing open source software with open standards has been in effect for several years, including collaborations with ETSI, TMF, MEF, GSMA, the O-RAN Alliance, and more. NGMN also maintains longstanding co-operations with all of these organisations. The alignment between The Linux Foundation and NGMN represents the latest in a long-standing effort to integrate open source and open standards across the industry.
ENDS
About NGMN Alliance (www.ngmn.org)
The NGMN Alliance (Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and, ultimately, will satisfy end user demand and expectations.
The vision of the NGMN Alliance is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on supporting 5G’s full implementation, Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Sustainability and Green Networks, and 6G.
NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants (NGMN Partners): Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors).
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at http://www.linuxfoundation.org.
Press Contact
NGMN Alliance (@ngmn_alliance)
Natacha Schubert
+49 69 907 4998 11
[email protected]
The Linux Foundation
Jill Lovato
[email protected]
https://www.realwire.com/releases/The-Linux-Foundation-and-NGMN-Collaborate-on-End-to-End-5G-and-Beyond
GSMA has issued a new report that predicts 5G will account for 21% of global mobile connections by 2025.
According to the industry group’s research arm, GSMA Intelligence, 5G connections will reach 500 million by the end of this year. That number is on course to cross the 1 billion threshold by 2023, and by 2025 will have reached 1.8 billion, just more than one fifth of the expected total of 8.8 billion SIM connections (excluding licensed cellular IoT). By then, the world is expected to have passed peak 4G, with connections topping out at 5.1 billion in 2024.GSMA, has issued a new report that predicts 5G will account for 21% of global mobile connections by 2025.
According to the industry group’s research arm, GSMA Intelligence, 5G connections will reach 500 million by the end of this year. That number is on course to cross the 1 billion threshold by 2023, and by 2025 will have reached 1.8 billion, just more than one fifth of the expected total of 8.8 billion SIM connections (excluding licensed cellular IoT). By then, the world is expected to have passed peak 4G, with connections topping out at 5.1 billion in 2024.
https://www.telecomtv.com/content/5g/5g-set-to-account-for-21-of-global-mobile-connections-by-2025-gsma-41850/
T-Mobile notches 4.95 Gbps on 5G standalone network
T-Mobile is claiming a new first for standalone 5G. The operator used a combo of 2.5 GHz and mmWave spectrum to reach nearly 5 Gbps on its commercial SA 5G network.
T-Mobile said it’s the world’s first New Radio Dual Connectivity (NR DC) data call on a commercial standalone 5G network, which resulted in download speeds of 4.95 Gbps. The data session took place in the September-October timeframe on a single site in Southern California, utilizing 100 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum and 800 MHz of mmWave, according to a T-Mobile spokesperson. Ericsson provided the network gear, and the call was conducted on a test device, the spokesperson said.
The mmWave portion used spectrum in the 39 GHz band. T-Mobile has long touted a layer cake strategy for 5G but put far less emphasis on mmWave than competitors like Verizon in early days – instead focusing on low-band 600 MHz for coverage and now 2.5 GHz since it later amassed a trove of mid-band spectrum from Sprint that provides a mix of coverage and capacity.
At the FCC’s third millimeter wave auction T-Mobile spent around $931 million to buy licenses in the 47 GHz and 39 GHz bands. Limited deployments, for example to boost capacity before big events like the Super Bowl LV in Tampa earlier this year or in the major market of Las Vegas, have used 39 GHz. Other locations like New York and Los Angeles have used 28 GHz.
While T-Mobile holds the bragging rights of first operator to deploy a nationwide 5G SA network at scale (and still the only U.S. carrier to do so) it hasn’t made much noise about impacts since the rollout.
RELATED: How’s 5G standalone doing in the U.S.?
During third quarter earnings results this week, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert made a short mention of 5G SA efforts and called out enterprise interest in advanced capabilities.
“We’ve already seen an increase in our win share for traditional postpaid services and we’re well positioned to capture advanced 5G services with the most widely built out 5G network and the only stand-alone 5G core, which is exactly why many large enterprises are in active trials with T-Mobile for advanced capabilities like mobile edge compute and private networks,” Sievert said. “And let me remind you that these advanced 5G services represent upside to our plan.”
The recent test focused on throughput although advanced capabilities like network slicing or ultra-low latency tend to be a focus of standalone 5G benefits, rather than straight speed gains. For 5G speeds, like in T-Mobile’s recent data call, spectrum resources and technologies like carrier aggregation or dual connectivity seem to get more attention. That was illustrated in recent Opensignal testing that showed T-Mobile’s 5G service using additional 2.5 GHz spectrum boosted user speeds significantly – but standalone 5G wasn’t the main driver.
T-Mobile until this point has largely focused on 600 MHz for users connected to the SA 5G network, who actually saw slower speeds than those on non-standalone (NSA) 5G which also incorporate 4G LTE mid-band frequencies to support 5G, according to Opensignal.
T-Mobile and U.S. carriers AT&T and Verizon all started initial 5G deployments in NSA mode, which helps get 5G up and running faster by having the option to still lean on 4G.
“Now, we can see that the 2.5 GHz band is predominantly used with NSA and so SA is not the key reason for the improvement in 5G speeds (although it likely does continue to have other benefits),” wrote Opensignal in an October 27 analysis.
Still, 5G experience improved as latencies dropped with help from the SA core and network reach expanded with the rollout, according to an earlier report.
“T-Mobile appears to have initially targeted its use of SA 5G to boost the reach of its 5G network, and therefore used its 600 MHz band for SA 5G — a low band that generally propagates further compared to higher bands like its 2.5 GHz band, but doesn’t allow for the same speeds,” Opensignal concluded in a February report on the operator’s 5G SA performance.
However, as T-Mobile’s most recent test shows, a mix of 2.5 GHz and mmWave with SA 5G dual connectivity can deliver ultra-fast results.
https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/t-mobile-notches-4-95-gbps-5g-standalone-network