T-Mobile says it's now the No. 1 prepaid wireless service provider in the US

[Himanshu Arora]

Just a week after T-Mobile announced strong second quarter results, exceeding Wall Street's expectations, the company announced that it's become the top prepaid wireless service provider in the US with 15.6 million customers.

Sprint, which is now number two in prepaid, has a total of 15.2 million customers, while AT&T and Verizon have got 11.3 million and 6 million prepaid users, respectively.

The number reported by T-Mobile includes customers from the company's prepaid arm as well as from MetroPCS, which they acquired last year. T-Mobile said MetroPCS added 1.2 million customers since this time last year, which is effectively one customer every 27 seconds, and now has a total of over 10 million prepaid subscribers.

In terms of overall subscribers, T-Mobile still ranks fourth, after Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint, with a total customer base of over 50 million. However, CEO John Legere is confident that the situation will change soon.

"As a matter of fact, I’m going on record—I predict we’ll overtake Sprint in total customers by the end of this year. Not someday. Not next year. This year", he said.

T-Mobile has benefited from its Uncarrier strategy with programs like JUMP and ETF switcher. The company recently started offering a free week-long test drive of its data network with an Apple iPhone 5s.

Also this week there were reports that Sprint was abandoning its plans to acquire T-Mobile, citing regulatory concerns. For months there have been serious speculations that the companies were in merger talks, with Sprint offering as much as $30 billion for a controlling stake in T-Mobile.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/57660-t-mobile-says-its-now-the-no-1-prepaid-wireless-service-provider-in-the-us.html

 

[Movatheaiur]

Explains why my service over the months for the past two-years has gone from great speeds(12d/3u) average to(2d/not even 1mbu)average, piss poor. This is on a mature 4G market.

 

[Guest]

Explains why my service over the months for the past two-years has gone from great speeds(12d/3u) average to(2d/not even 1mbu)average, piss poor. This is on a mature 4G market.

I thought I was the only one! Iv noticed a huge decrease in service quality in my area over the last few years. I literally no longer would get service at my home for more than a single phone call. I had to have them give me a signal booster just to get phone service. And I live 15min outside a major city! I never had problems previous years. In fact I had full signal and could get on the net without a problem.

More people on the service is not an excuse! Invest in more towers to support them!

 

[Hexic]

Explains why my service over the months for the past two-years has gone from great speeds(12d/3u) average to(2d/not even 1mbu)average, piss poor. This is on a mature 4G market.

I thought I was the only one! I've noticed a huge decrease in service quality in my area over the last few years. I literally no longer would get service at my home for more than a single phone call. I had to have them give me a signal booster just to get phone service. And I live 15min outside a major city! I never had problems previous years. In fact I had full signal and could get on the net without a problem.

More people on the service is not an excuse! Invest in more towers to support them!

Yeah, I've witnessed this myself as well with Virgin Mobile USA. In general, for as many pre-paid wireless customers as there are today, you'd think that Sprint/T-Mobile would seriously invest in (punctual) network upgrades/retention work.

I was on VM until March of this year, and for $55/mo, I received 2.5GB of data and unlimited talk/text. The coverage was mediocre at best, but the speeds weren't bad.

AT&T offers a $60/mo no-contact plan with 2.5GB of data & unlimited talk and text, so that's the best plan I've found thus far for the price. Verizon offers a similar plan, but for $10/mo more.