T-Mobile to maintain pressure on Verizon, AT&T and Sprint with Nov. 10 ‘Un-carrier X’ event, more low-band spectrum
T-Mobile US continues to show remarkable growth fueled by robust marketing efforts and an ever-expanding network. Those efforts resulted in the carrier attracting 2.3 million net new connections during the third quarter, which while flat year-over-year, is still a significant achievement.
Looking to maintain its marketing and network blitz, the carrier scheduled an “Un-carrier” event for Nov. 10 in Los Angeles, though did not release any details on what to expect. Some of T-Mobile US’ recent marketing moves have included its “Mobile without Borders” promotion and “JUMP on Demand” revamped device payment program.
The promotional activity continues to be working as T-Mobile US management noted its Q3 postpaid porting ratio was 1.8 to one vs. the rest of the industry, having increased to 1.9 to one just over the past week. More specifically, the carrier said during Q3 it had a positive 2.1 to one porting ratio with Sprint, positive two to one porting ratio with AT&T Mobility and a positive 1.3 to one ratio with Verizon Wireless.
T-Mobile US also increased its full-year, postpaid net addition guidance from between 3.4 million and 3.9 million to now between 3.8 million and 4.2 million new customers. T-Mobile US posted around 3.2 million total branded postpaid net additions for the year through Q3, signaling expectations of between 600,000 and 1 million net postpaid customer additions for Q4, which would fall short of the nearly 1.4 million net additions posted in Q4 2014.
As for continued network expansion, T-Mobile US stated it had hit 300 million potential customers covered by its LTE network, which had previously been a year-end goal. That coverage included 175 million pops covered by the carrier’s 700 MHz A-Block spectrum holdings, which provides more robust in-building coverage compared with the 1.7/2.1 GHz and 1.9 GHz spectrum the carrier is also using to support LTE services.
T-Mobile US CEO John Legere also noted during the carrier’s quarterly results conference call it had recently reached “four additional agreements in principle” to purchase additional 700 MHz licenses covering 20 million pops, which would bolster its 700 MHz spectrum portfolio to a total of 210 million pops. The new agreements, while not yet complete, are said to include spectrum covering the markets of Phoenix, San Diego, Las Vegas and New Orleans, among others.
T-Mobile US also noted it has refarmed spectrum assets accumulated when it acquired MetroPCS into the carrier’s network. Costs associated with completing the MetroPCS integration and decommissioning of its legacy CDMA network totaled $193 million in Q3, with expectations of a further $125 million to $225 million in costs.
The MetroPCS operations showed strong support for T-Mobile US’ direct prepaid growth in Q3, with the carrier claiming 595,000 net customer additions for the quarter.
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