T-Mobile on Q4 subscriber loss, LTE deployment and support for iPhone

Shawn Knight

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Staff member

T-Mobile USA has released fourth quarter 2011 operating results, highlighted by a loss of more than 800,000 contract subscribers over the three month period ending December 31, 2011. The report expressly blamed the loss of contract business on the launch of the iPhone 4S by three nationwide competitors. At present, T-Mobile is the only major US carrier that doesn’t offer Apple’s flagship handset but that could possibly change in the near future.

As part of the company’s “Challenger Strategy” to gain lost ground on the competition during the failed acquisition by AT&T, T-Mobile announced they will be investing $4 billion into network modernization and LTE deployment set for launch in 2013.

More specifically, they will be installing new equipment at 37,000 cell sites and refarming old 2G spectrum to build out the new network. T-Mobile expects to reach broad deployment of LTE, with service in the vast majority of the top 50 markets and 20 MHz service in 75 percent of the top 25 markets. CTO Neville Ray noted that "our 4G network will be compatible with a broader range of devices, including the iPhone." A bit of foreshadowing, perhaps?

Key to the new 4G LTE strategy is additional spectrum and cash that T-Mobile will receive as part of the failed takeover by AT&T.

T-Mobile has a lot of work ahead of them as competitors have been rolling out their LTE networks for some time now. Verizon offers LTE service to over 200 million Americans in 190+ markets. At last count, AT&T had launched 4G LTE service in over 26 major cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City with plans to finish the rollout by the end of 2013. Newcomer Sprint recently announced that Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio will be the first four markets upgraded to 4G LTE in the first half of this year.

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Growing up with a Mac, one might as well not have had a computer at all. Are they all still only compatible with one application? Myst I think it was called.
 
The loss could not of been related to bailing on T Mobile so they would not of become AT&T users?
 
How dumb are these proported analysts..? I had the original iPhone through AT&T and their service was absolutely horrid, so I left after my contract to T-Mobil.. only to leave when they were being taken ovr by the Horrid AT$T.

Matter of fact, 2 sibling and parent also dropped T-mobile when AT&T pit in a bid for them. Anyone who has ever had AT&T will forever run from their lousy service and horrid communication network.


Do these "professionals" leave their massage parlors long enough to witness the actual world taking place around them, or do they still get paid massive amounts of money to speculate on BS?
 
All T-mobil has to do is offer WinPhones and they will grab all the subscribers they can handle. There is a good amount of people who want a full-fledged legitamate OS on their phones.

Android is cutsie & fadish, where anything standard, cost more in the forms of apps. So silly... I need to by a word processing app with a $400 phone.. that is suppose to come with an OS.
 
so far I agree with all the comments.

T-mobile lost all those customers because those people didn't want to become part of the horrible AT&T, which it is. Not sure what these analysts are talking about, but they are wrong...it's not the iphone..it's the announced buyout.
I myself almost left, and still might, but didn't because i resigned the contract a week before the buyout was announced.
 
I am with T-mobile since my plan can't be beat! 4G, $45 unlimited talk, text, web, data and they give me $5 bucks each month credit for the next 5 years.
 
What is really hurting T-Moble more then anything is their outsourceing. I know for a fact that they use call centers in India. Theres no way that the person on the other end of the phone in the customer service office named "Billy" with an accent that thick. The other thing that hurts T-moble sales is the lack of QUALITY service. Many of my freinds have T-moble. All I hear from them is how many times a day their calls are dropped. Or how slow T-Moble is on fixing anything with their account. Or how horrible the data speeds actually are. T-Moble was looking at AT&T as a quick fix for their general inferior service.
 
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