T-Mobile’s Uncarrier strategy has been popular with its customers and has shook up a lot of the industry by bucking age-old trends for more modern approaches. Whilst this event was arguably the least exciting of the previous six; it still brought great news for both consumer and corporate customers.
John Legere, T-Mobile’s bold CEO, isn’t one to mess around. Taking the stage on Wednesday, Legere said: “the s**t that been said externally, it’s blowing my mind” in regards to the technology T-Mobile has adopted early which smartphone manufacturers and competitors have been slow to adopt.
Firstly, T-Mobile intends to “rewrite the rules” on cellular data by delivering service to areas where networks have been unable to reach. The network is achieving this through providing a Wi-Fi service where a signal broadcasted by a traditional cell tower would struggle to get to.
It’s not completely rewriting the rules as this is something which has been done before. Here at TelecomsTech we covered Vodafone’s plans to achieve a similar accomplishment in the UK through their “Open Sure Signal” initiative. This will mean up to 100 villages who are left in the dark will finally gain access to 3G data using femtocell technology.
T-Mobile is using a similar roll-out dubbed the T-Mobile Personal CellSpot. The difference being, customers will tap into their own routers in order to enable full-bars of service whether at home or work. Legere said this move is essentially “adding millions of towers to our network in a single day.”
Next, T-Mobile has signed a multi-year and exclusive deal with in-flight Wi-Fi company Gogo. This will allow the network’s customers to send and receive unlimited texts and pictures, and receive visual voicemail, on any global Gogo-equipped flight within the U.S.
Gogo-enabled flights account for three-quarters of all domestic flights across the U.S in the past year, according to T-Mobile. It’s easy to understand why this move will be of particular interest to the network’s business and corporate customers. It will go live on September 17th and will be free for all of T-Mobile’s Uncarrier customers.
Finally, and you can see T-Mobile’s love of Wi-Fi here, Legere praised Wi-Fi calling which has been added in the latest flagships by most of the major smartphone manufacturers. He says it will enable customers with poor cell service to stay in touch, and T-Mobile will enable calling via it for free.
What do you think about T-Mobile’s latest “Uncarrier” moves? Let us know in the comments.
To find out about other events like T-Mobile’s Uncarrier, visit Telecoms Events.
